Modern Mechanix

When Mae West Went To Jail For ‘Sex’ (Nov, 1959)

2012-05-18T21:29:50Z

The Adam & Eve sketch from 1937 may be heard here.

When Mae West Went To Jail For ‘Sex’

The Come Up ‘n See Me Sometime girl turned a bare cell into a $1 million publicity sell.

By MICHAEL MATTHEW

MAE WEST, THE GREATEST teasetress of them all—the naughty-hipped seductress who turned bluenoses red with the line “C’m up’n see me sometime,” and who made the public believe, “I can do more with my voice and eyes than another woman can do turning herself inside out”—failed to bewitch the authorities only once.

She landed in the cooler which she promptly turned into a gilded cage.

Described as the “Love Goddess,” and the “High-Priestess of Sex,” Mae West has come to represent what psychologists consider the “titillator of the American libido.” When asked her opinion of psychologists, it was rumored her reply was: “What they know about sex couldn’t excite a mosquito. They’re a pack of brain-hole peepers!”

Playing a bit part in her first movie, she founded her Hollywood career on one line.

When a checkroom girl saw Mae’s furs, she gasped, “For goodness sake!” Mae winked: “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.”

When she was signed to portray a sultry honky-tonk keeper opposite W. C. Fields in My Little Chickadee, Hollywood and the fans expected verbal fireworks to explode. No one had ever been masterful enough to top the barbarous sarcasms of W.C.,—a high-ranking star of the day.

But when the haughty hussy hit town, Hokumville was stunned with disbelief when she converted W.C. Fields into an ardent admirer. He respected her talents and was disinclined to tangle with a woman whose reputation for cutting wit was as outrageous as his own. He was ordinarily a cherubic cut-up when on the movie set, but he became subdued and gentlemanly when Miss Mae approached the cameras. Some claim that when she stood beside him a flirtatious twitch developed in his mammoth nose. The movie was a box-office smash and they remained fast friends.

Mae West began her career playing child roles. She played her first grown-up role as a chorus girl in an Ed Wynn show and from that bit part on, there was no stopping her. While the average chorus girl is lost in the mass of cavorting pulchritude, the magnetism of Mae West was quickly felt.

Men watched her with perspiring imaginations and women glared at her with envy. A star with rare and remarkable brilliance was being born and even today many people boast, “The second I spotted her I knew she had more than what it takes.” Her reputation as a scathing wit began to show when one evening she was overheard to demolish a snazzy-suited masher with: “Your mother should have had children.”

She once commented about her own character: “I used to be Snow White but I drifted.” When an enterprising statistician discovered that Miss West had the exact proportions of Venus de Milo, she laughingly remarked, “I’ve got it on her. I’ve got two arms and I know how to use them. Besides, dearie, I’m not marble.” And no mathematician has yet been able to disprove her erudite theory on geometry: “A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points.”

Though she is loved for her kindness to unknown and struggling performers, a noted movie director once stated, “Hell hath no fury like Mae when scorned.” He was probably thinking of the time when Miss West, angered by the crude antics of a loud-mouthed actor, said: “That guy’s no good. His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”

Though she was usually aware of just how far she could carry her personal crusade to make “sex” a national necessity, she has, now and then, miscalculated. In 1937, appearing as guest star on the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy radio show, Miss West created a furore that almost shattered the airways.

In a skit about the Garden of Eden, Miss West was assigned the role of Eve opposite Don Ameche, who was Adam. Bergen was the snake in the grass. The script was cleared by NBC and the rehearsals went smoothly. But when Miss West, the mistress of vocal innuendo who can make the phrase “how now, brown cow” sound like an invitation to an evening of delights befitting a sultan—performed her far from subtle reading and salty ad-libs she was banned from the air waves for twelve years. Radio listeners who were fortunate enough to hear that program have never forgotten her memorable reading.

When her play Sex (written by Mae under the pseudonym of Janet Mast) opened in 1926 at Daly’s Theater in New York, a horrified gasp arose from the theater going public—but front row seats quickly became more valuable than blue-chip stocks. Sex and censorship became the noisy topic of the times. If all the newspaper headlines were cut out and laid end-to-end, the ballyhoo could have been read in China.

The New York Times in its review the next day suggested that since the play was laid in a Trinidad brothel, in Montreal and Westchester County, “the authorities of all these places have ample cause for protest.” The aforementioned locales did not take the Times’ advice—but, spurred by puritanical citizens and prodded by opportunistic politicians, the police raided the show ten months later. (Why they waited so long, no one knows.) The Queen of Curves was carted off to court and charged with “corrupting the morals of youth.” Miss West indignantly denied the charge and claimed her play was “educational.”

But on the night Sex was raided by a Deputy Chief Inspector and ten stalwart policemen, the mistress of the quick-quip was unusually unquiptive—allowing the producer, William Morgenstern to do all the talking. Amid the bursting of flash bulbs and hordes of cheering sidewalk spectators, Miss West and twenty others in the cast were coralled and helped into taxis and driven to Night Court where they were received by a magistrate and by Acting Mayor Joseph V. McKee.

Then the farce got underway.

The courtroom was crammed and jammed by chattering spectators and noisy with the popping of flash bulbs. The Acting Mayor consulted with the battery of lawyers and arranged bail. Then he approached the bench to sit beside the magistrate while the festive prisoners were arraigned.

(It was rumored that McKee had, several days earlier, sent out warnings of the impending police action to all concerned in order to be certain the victims were prepared with sufficient money for bail.) Murmured opinions filled the courtroom. “Mae West will wrap the law around her luscious finger.” One enthusiastic fan whispered to her, “Knock them dead with a wiggle, Mae.” Another excited beholder crackled, “Remand her to my custody, Judge. There’s plenty room in my house.” Miss West, clad in a gown designed to set off her hour-glass figure, waved an arm glistening with diamonds, indicating to her admirers that she would stand pat and defend the public’s right to enjoy Sex.

She was released on $1,000 bail while the other performers were required to put up only $500. McKee brought the fracas to a grand climax by declaring that “. . . the policy of the city … is to make the criminal court the arbiter of what is decent and what is not decent on the New York stage.” Miss West, moving with her famous undulating stroll, left the courtroom free on bail.

After the raiding of Sex and two other plays, The Captive and Virgin Man, the drive against so-called obscenity and nudity spread like a plague and raid-happy cops had a field day. In a Brooklyn dance hall seven young women were arrested for not wearing stockings, although the dancers were otherwise “more or less clad in satin.” Street corners were cleared of curbstone Romeos. Ladies of the night ran for shelter.

But though they were facing trial, the plays continued. On February 13, 1927, the newspapers reported that Sex and the other two raided shows were playing to jammed houses. The name Mae West became synonymous with SEX. Wherever she went people pointed and said, “There goes Sex.”

On February 16, Magistrate G.W. Simpson ordered the trial of the Sex company, charging them with putting on an indecent show. The trial was to be conducted in the Court of Special Sessions.

Testifying before the magistrate, Inspector James Bolan cited his personal and tempered opinions against the play. He read from a long list of notes and often paused to collect his thoughts, attempting to express in chaste language the shocking goings-on in Sex. (Scores of spectators left because his notes were not as lurid as they anticipated.) Bolan, a naive drama critic, referred to “sugar daddy,” as “sugar dandy” and quoted a line as, “Don’t call this place a dump.” He was quickly corrected by Assistant D. A. James G. Wallace who amended the line to, “Don’t call this joint a dump.”

Wallace was accused of bias and of trying to hold the court in session for as long as he could so as to make the actors miss their evening performance. But quick action on the part of the defending attorneys closed the proceedings at an early hour. However, Wallace became a key figure in the court drama. With a loud and garish display of histrionics, he managed to bring the state’s case to a triumphant conclusion.

In court, on March 5th, the Sex company pleaded not guilty. Miss West, who had been seemingly withdrawn and uninterested throughout the previous proceedings (often keeping herself busy by applying her make up and blowing court dust from the fur collar of her coat, finally broke her long silence to state, “I think that Sex is one of the cleanest plays on Broadway. There is no nudity, and no obscene language in the whole play.”

(She must have overlooked the fact that in one scene she was stretched across the lap of her leading man in a string skirt which, when the strings were caused to separate, * revealed a skimpy undergarment resembling a G-string.) After much legal maneuvering on both sides, the trial finally got underway on April 2nd, before Justice Donnellan. Miss West, powdered, bejeweled and ravishingly. gowned, listened to the declamatory statements hurled by Wallace who, after a bombastic tirade, almost got into a fist fight with the defense attorney hell-bent on protecting Miss West’s good name. The mobbed courtroom _ waited for one of Miss West’s famous outbursts of temper, but she remained unruffled and little more than silent—as though waiting for an opportune time to begin blasting away at the puritans of the law.

But as the trial came to an end, the leading man, Barry O’Neill, appeared apprehensive. Fear began to pale the rugged countenance of a man who had been a lieutenant on a British minesweeper during World War I.

James A. Timoney, officer of the corporation which owned the play (named the Moral Production Company) pulled a rosary from his pocket and held it as though in reverent prayer. Wallace seemed to literally gyrate as he made a ringing and denunciatory summing up. Miss West remained calm and rather cheerful and tried to bolster up the lagging spirits around her with warm smiles and cute quips.

On April 4th, the verdict came down: “GUILTY!”

The leading man buried his face in his hands and was heard to sob. Other men had tears in their eyes. Timoney fingered his rosary. Miss West, still calm, though somewhat bitter, exclaimed: “Anyone who needs a dirty play ought to call on (Wallace) for suggestions.” She contended that it was not the content of the play—but the manner in which Wallace had presented the case that had brought in the adverse verdict.

A delightful remark made to a Times reporter by a chorus girl, gained a great deal of public attention.

“Why, the chief sources of amusement among us between scenes were discussions on the music of Beethoven and Bach, Shakespeare, and all the world’s most famous philosophers and literati.”

On April 22nd, called “The Day Sex Was Jailed,” Mae West, Timoney, and Morgenstern were fined and given ten days each in the workhouse. Donnellan, in delivering the sentences, said, “. . . the play is clearly obscene, immoral, and indecent . . . We are not a puritanical people, but we are a moral com- munity . . . New York … is the most moral city in the universe.”

Miss West nonchalantly rouged her cheeks, freshened her lipstick and, with great aplomb, undulated across the room, commenting: “. . . that prosecutor Wallace could make The Rosary look like a suggestive play if he talked five minutes on it.”

But while the trial was over—the shenanigans were far from finished. The darling of the headlines turned the simple act of going to jail into a colorful extravaganza. She drove to ” jail in her flashy $20,000 limousine followed by throngs of cheering admirers. Her arm was limp from signing autographs. People pleaded for a strand of her hair, for a button, a scented garter. One passionate devotee begged, “I’d sell my soul to kiss your little finger.” Mae, gracious but still quippy, remarked, “Give a lover like you a finger and you’ll want more than you can hand-le.” Her parting remark was “Give my regards to Broadway.”

While the law found a way to lock up the symbol of sex, the law could not tarnish her brilliance. From the moment she stepped into the Welfare Island workhouse, the drab structure glistened with her personality. The blue cotton uniform which made boards, boxes and bags of the other women, seemed to be transformed into a sheer negligee on Mae. Her bare gray cell took on the aura of a royal boudoir. She asked no favors, no special treatment, and performed the menial tasks without complaint.

She distributed the gifts sent to her among the other less fortunate prisoners. An expert on matters of the heart, she gave advice to the lovelorn and bolstered their sinking spirits with hope. The only rancor she expressed was against Wallace and District Attorney Joab Banton, whom she denounced in strong terms.

“Jail life is not bad after all,” she confided. “It may be the making of me.

“They say I’m a terrible woman, but I’m not really. I never drink or smoke.”

After serving her sentence she presented Warden Harry Schleth with $1,000 to buy books for the jail library. The warden, though obviously appreciative of the gift, commented flatly that he would exercise “liberal” censorship over the choice of books. Miss West’s reply was either unheard, or unprintable . . . though she did admit that her term in prison had provided her with enough material for a dozen plays.

Upon leaving the workshop, she was greeted by a group of New York society women, who as representatives of a charity committee, were eager to hear her views on prison life. Miss West, standing beside a black “pie wagon” in which she had once ridden, delivered a most enlightening lecture on the subject— and other varied topics that wilted the starch in the more prissy ladies. It was noted that two of the women almost fainted. It was not noted whether they almost fainted from thrill or shock.

Mae West, the high priestess of sex, the gaudy-glamour gal who put an extra pulse-beat in the American male’s libido, the fabulous woman who helped chase sex from the shadows and into the light of open-mindedness, went on to more daring and greater accomplishments. She was finally immortalized during World War II when the British Royal Air Force gave the name of Mae Wests to their bulging life jackets. Said Mae proudly, “It makes me feel like I started a second front of my own.”

Going strong today and packing them in wherever she performs, Mae West, past sixty, is still able to make many a younger actress envy her sex appeal. In her night club act, surrounded by half a dozen muscular young men who make Greek statues look like lumps of clay, she comments, “It’s not the men in my life, but the life in my men that counts.”

Mae West is living proof that you can take the woman out of Sex, but you can’t take sex out of the woman!

Navy Flyer Invents Tandem Airplane for Heavy Loads (Dec, 1929)

2012-05-18T21:06:45Z

Harold H. “Kiddy” Karr was a pioneering naval aviator (Enlisted Naval Aviation Pilot Certificate #1). He passed away in 1978.

Navy Flyer Invents Tandem Airplane for Heavy Loads
A TANDEM airplane called the KarrAvan has been invented by Harold H. Karr, a naval aviation pilot at North Island, San Diego, California. The ship which is 130 feet long and has a wing spread of 96 feet is able to lift 85,000 pounds. The unique flying machine will be powered by five 420 h.p. engines and will have a top speed of 135 miles an hour. The ship will carry 80 passengers and their baggage more than 4,000 miles without a halt.

Give Me One Evening And I’ll Give You A Push-Button Memory (Dec, 1961)

2012-05-19T03:06:20Z

His course is still around. His books on magic and memory (first one in 1996 and latest published in 2007) are still in print.

Give Me One Evening And I’ll Give You A Push-Button Memory

Yes! Here at last is your chance to gain the super-powered, file-cabinet memory you’ve always dreamed about…so easily and so quickly that you’ll he astounded …AND ACTUALLY DO IT WITHOUT RISKING A PENNY!

Let me explain! I don’t care how poor you may think, your memory Is now! I believe that you have a memory 10 TO 20 TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU REALIZE TODAY! I believe that your memory is working at a tiny fraction of its true power today—because you simply don’t know the right way to feed it facts! Because you don’t know the right way to take names and faces and anything else you want to remember —and burn them Into your memory so vividly that you can never forget them!

Yes! Remembering is a trick! Powerful memories can be made to order—you don’t have to be born with them! The secret of a super-powered, hair-trigger memory is as simple as tying your shoelace! I can teach it to you in a single evening! A nd I’m willing to prove it to you without your risking a penny’ Here’s how!

Would You Invest Three Hours of Your Time to Transform Your Memory?

All I ask from you is this. Let me send you—at my risk—one of the most fascinating books you have ever read. When this book arrives, set aside only one evening. Give this book your uninterrupted attention. And then get ready for one of the most thrilling accomplishments of your entire life!

Take this book and turn to page 39. Read eight short pages —no more! And then, put down the book. Review in your own mind the one simple secret I’ve shown you. And then—get ready to test your new, AUTOMATIC memory!

What you are going to do, in that very first evening, is this! without referring to the book, you are going to sit down, and you are going to write—not five, not ten, but TWENTY important facts that you have never been able to memorize before! If you are a business man, they may be customers’ orders that you have received … if you are a salesman, they may be twenty different products in your line … if you are a student, they may be the twenty parts of your homework.

In any case you are simply going to glance over that list again for a few moments. You are going to perform a simple mental trick on each one of these facts—that will burn that fact into your mind, permanently and automatically! And then you are going to put that list away. You’re going to bed without thinking of It again.

And the next morning, you are going to amaze your family and friends! When you go down to business, you’ll attend to every one of those orders—automatically—without referring to your memo pad—without being a slave to reminders, or notes, or other “paper crutches!”

You’ll keep every single appointment on time—because one appointment will automatically flash into your mind after another—at the precise moment you need them—exactly as though you pushed a mental button!

Suddenly, Whole New Worlds of Self-Confidence Open Up for You!

But this is just the beginning of the “miracles” you can perform with your memory! This secret is Just one of the over 50 MEMORY INTENSIFIERS contained in this book! You have seen men and women use these exact same methods on television to astound you! But you never knew how incredibly simple they were—once you learned the inside secret!

For instance—REMEMBERING NAMES AND FACES! How many times have you been embarrassed, because you couldn’t remember the name of the person you were talking to … or introduce him to a friend! In as little as one short week after you receive this book, how would you like to walk into a room full of TWENTY new people.. . meet each one of them only once . . . and then remember the names — automatically —for as long as you live!

Yes! these names and faces are filed in the storehouse of your memory—permanently!

Think of the advantage in business—when you can call every customer by his name. Think of becoming a celebrity at your club—as the member who “knows everyone” . . . who can be depended upon to avoid mistakes, to win new friends for the organization, to get things done!

This book teaches you how to memorize a speech, or a sales presentation—in minutes! It teaches you how to remember every card played when you relax at night! It can improve your gin, or poker, or bridge game by 100% in a single week!

This book shows you how to improve the depth and force and power of your mind! It shows you how to double your vocabulary . . . learn dozens of ways to burn new words into your memory . . . learn their meanings without looking them up . . . repeat entire phrases, sentences, paragraphs from the great writers! You’ll be able to learn a foreign language in Just a few short weeks—at least three to four times as quickly and easily as you could without this system!

You’ll remember dates, addresses, appointments — automatically! You’ll carry dozens of telephone numbers in the file-cabinet of your mind!

MEET HARRY LORAYNE “The human being with the most phenomenal memory in the world!” Hurry Lorayne has lectured in front of thousands of Americans! Rotarians, Elks, Masons. Chamber of Commerce groups have all called on this amazing man to prove the business and social power of a strong reliable memory! Lorayne’s memory is so strong that he can remember the names, faces, addresses and occupations of over 700 different people in a single evening—after meeting each one of them only once I And yet, a few short years ago, this man’s memory was no better than yours I This man trained his own memory—he built the most fabulous memory in the world from scratch! And now he gives you the very same secrets he discovered and perfected himself! Memory Builders that work overnight! Secrets that can change your entire life in a single week—OR EVERY CENT OF YOUR MONEY BACK!

Try It Entirely at My Risk

The name of this book is HOW TO DEVELOP A SUPERPOWER MEMORY!

This book is a word-for-word copy of my regular mail-order course, which I sell for $25. However, the book costs you only $3.98! And I want you to try this book—in your own home—entirely at my risk! Here’s how!

First, try for yourself the experiment I have described in this article! See for yourself the almost-unbelievable results in the very first evening alone! And then, continue to use the book for an additional week! In this very first week alone, i! this amazing book doesn’t do everything I say . if it doesn’t give you a file-cabinet memory—no matter what your age—no matter how poor you may think your memory is today—then simply return the book for every cent of your money back!

You have nothing to Use! Act TODAY!

MAIL NO-RISK COUPON TODAY!

MEMORY RESEARCH BUREAU, Dept. SM-12 386 Fourth Avenue, New York 16, N. Y.

Gentlemen: Yes, I want to try a copy of Harry Lorayne’s amazing new book HOW TO DEVELOP A SUPER-POWER MEMORY—entirely at your risk. I will pay postman only $3.98 plus low C.O.D. charges. I will use this book for a full ten days at your risk. If I am not completely delighted … if this book does not do everything you say, I will simply return it for every cent of my money back.

SANITARY DRIER URGED (May, 1929)

2012-05-18T14:48:44Z

SANITARY DRIER URGED

The day of the grimy roller towel is fast vanishing. Hotels, restaurants and other public places where washrooms are a necessity are installing the automatic hot-air drier shown at left.

The press of a foot pedal is all that is necessary to operate the device. A steady blast of hot air is forced from the nozzle. By massaging the wet hands for several seconds, the drying process is facilitated. The hands are thus dried faster and in a more thorough manner than if a clean towel were used.

Health authorities throughout the country are advising the installation of this machine in all public wash rooms. Prevention of a great amount of disease that is now spread through the use of unsanitary towels will thus be possible.

The Something-Out-Of-Nothing Man (Dec, 1941)

2012-05-18T14:49:27Z

The Something-Out-Of-Nothing Man

Ralph Barter Has Made A Fortune Out Of The Things People Didn’t Want I Read How This Down East Rothschild Overcame The Handicap Of Losing An Arm—And, In So Doing, Made Himself Into An Institution I

by Bud Martin

“LAD ’tis best you leave the islands.”

George Barter spoke to his twenty-six-year-old son just back from World War 1, minus an arm lost in the Argonne. “You’ve been a good lobsterman, but the old days and the old ways can never be again for you. A seagull can’t soar with one wing, and a man can’t handle a pitching smallboat with one hand. Better forget it.”

Ralph Barter shook his blond head. “Take me away from salt water and I couldn’t live.”

“You need but one hand to become a radio operator aboard a vessel,” suggested the older man.

Maybe marine radio did offer a good career for one-armed ex-service men, but the routine

was a pale substitute for the glamour of lobstering; and young Barter yearned for the tangy wind that puts life into the sparkling waters of Penobscot Bay. So he quit Boston and the radio school. Newport, where he tried again, wasn’t much better. And anyway, watchman aboard a rich man’s yacht was no job for a man who’d hauled his string of two hundred lobster traps from his own boat.

“I understand,” George Barter welcomed his thin son back to Deer Island, Maine. “Some Barters couldn’t live anywhere except on the islands. You’re one of ‘em, I guess.” He gave his son an interest in a sardine herring weir, then being built on the island. “Hire a ‘hand’ to do your share of the labor,”

he cautioned. “You’ve a good head on your shoulders. Use it.”

Young Barter, delighted at being back in the islands again and determined to make good, plunged into the weir-building with all the energy that had been pent up so long— and forgot his father’s caution about physical labor. One day he was standing in a dory, driving a wing sapling into the mud in two feet of water. A wave moved the boat. With his left hand, the one he’d lost in the Argonne, he reached out to regain his balance. Ralph Barter went overboard.

To the average islander a ducking is all in the day’s work, but to a strong man newly crippled this was a tragic reminder of his deficiency. It seemed to Ralph Barter that he could never overcome the loss of his arm. He’d failed in Boston, failed in Newport, and now he was a failure at home. Despair, black as the mud that covered his face, enshrouded his very soul.

You don’t hear much about women in the man’s world of the Maine islands but they’re there just the same, making snug homes for their men to return to; rejoicing in good times, cheerful in bad; ready always with a quiet sympathy and practical aid for the wounds, body and soul, which the sea inflicts upon

their fishermen. For three days Mrs. Barter suffered in silent sympathy with her first born. She was prepared when he turned to her at last with, “What can I do now, Mother?”

“You can’t wrastle life with one hand, son.”

“No.”

“Then you must have another arm to fight with. Son, don’t you recollect you earned your first nickel with a lobster trap someone else had thrown away? You got your start by using odds and ends!”

“Mebby you’re right,” Ralph Barter’s blue eyes were thoughtful.

“Course I am. And that very knack’ll be like a new hand to you, if you use it. ‘Stead of trying to wrastle with the two-handed ones on their own home grounds you’re going to take the things they can’t see any use for and turn them into something worth while. ‘Tis your salvation, boy.”

“Mother,” solemnly Ralph Barter spoke, “that’s just what I’m going to do!” And that’s how Ralph Barter, of Deer Isle, Maine, em-

barked upon the strange career of making “somethings out of nothings.”

Probably there’s no place where less is wasted than on a Maine sea island, where even the clam shells are utilized as gravel for driveways. High and low, back and forth across the thirteen miles of granite ledge and thin top oil which is Deer Isle and Little Deer Isle, Ralph Barter searched, and the only thing he could find that no one else wanted was the job of treasurer of the town of Deer Isle. He took it. And a fertile field for the waste-hunter he found town affairs to be. Naively he wondered why the town was borrowing money when so much was due in back taxes on spruce woodlands.

“Nobody’ll pay taxes on spruce,” the tax collector informed him patiently. “The trees are too small for lumber. And too gnarled, and twisted, and knotty. ‘Tis a relief to the owners when the town takes the prop’ty off their hands.”

The tax collector’s opinion of Deer Isle spruce was corroborated by three different lumber companies which Barter contacted. Not one of them would take it as a gift. Still, the green town treasurer believed the spruce

could be used. It seemed a pretty big problem for him to tackle all alone, but he made a trip to the city of Rockland, on the mainland, anyway. Then he took a deep breath and began to buy tax liens, and even tax-paid spruce woodland—all he could get of it. He sold his interest in the weir. He used up his savings from the lobster-fishing days, every nickel. Then he borrowed money from a bank and bought trucks, a portable sawmill, and hired men to cut and haul the spruce no one on Deer Isle wanted.

“He’s plain daft,” was the island opinion.

“Mebbyso,” opined one cracker-box philosopher, “but ’tis the fust time ever I see a banker loan money to a crazy man.”

Maybe Ralph Barter was crazy but the banker didn’t think so; not when Barter told him of that trip to Rockland to interview the superintendent of maintenance of the Eastern Steamship Company, which operated scores of routes serving the coastal and river towns of Maine. Barter had convinced the super of maintenance that a tidy saving in upkeep could be made by using island spruce because its very twisted, gnarled knottiness

made it all the tougher, longer-wearing planking for wharves. The super gave Barter a twenty-thousand-dollar initial order for Deer Isle Spruce.

So began the Barter Lumber Company. It also was the beginning of the Barter Coal Company, which almost ended the Barter Lumber Company and Ralph Barter too.

You’ll see wharves jutting into the harbor waters all along the coast of Maine; shabby, graying fingers reaching out for the rich bounty of the sea. A wharf can be a mighty profitable investment or a veritable old man of the sea, a fatal burden of taxes and repairs. The latter is what Ralph Barter blithely bought in the exuberance of the moment. Then, when he realized that the expense of maintaining such a large wharf would just about sink the so auspiciously launched lumber company, he tried to sell the wharf or to swap it for a smaller one. But this time Ralph Barter really did have something no one else wanted, and it began to look as if he was stuck with it.

The only way out that Barter could see was to add some business that would help pay wharf expenses. It was a fine location for buying lobsters. Barter knew lobsters, believed that he could make money as a dealer. But the memory

of the old days was still an unhealed wound. If he couldn’t fish for lobsters, he’d be-damned if he’d handle ‘em at all.

Take coal, on the other hand. Coal is a nice bulky merchandise with which to utilize waste space. Not many on the island used coal for house heating because, Barter believed, the price was too high. He studied the situation, learned that he could lower the price by four dollars a ton if he bought coal direct from the mines and had it come to his wharf in chartered barges. He put a cautious ad in the Deer Isle Messenger, secured sufficient advance orders to warrant the venture, and wired for his first barge of coal.

It was a big event, the arrival of the first oceangoing vessel to make Deer Isle harbor in many a moon. At flood tide the waterfront was crowded with islanders come to welcome the shipment that was to bring them winter warmth and comfort many had never known before. A shout went up as the sea-going tug rounded into view. Slowly, majestically the tow entered the reach between the headlands, the long voyage almost over, danger past. If Ralph Barter had known where there was a good brass band no one wanted he would have hired it. He ordered the unloading crew out upon the wharf.

“What’s she stopping out in the reach for?”

Dense smoke belched from the tug’s rakish funnel. White water boiled at her counter. The barge was stuck fast in the channel mud two miles from Barter’s wharf! And Ralph Barter’s hopes of saving the Barter Lumber Company with cheap coal were stuck out there with it.

Ralph Barter forgot a lot and he learned a lot that first hard winter. He forgot the pride which had prevented him from buying lobsters; and he put in a tank to sell gasoline to the fishermen from whom he bought lobsters, which gave him dealer’s price on ? fuel for his sawmill, coal and lumber trucks. He worked so hard at pulling himself out of the ditch that first shipment had put him in, making something out of nothing, justifying the confidence of the townspeople, that he forgot he was a cripple. And when he did that he learned to laugh again.

Today Barter is the largest independent buyer of lobsters on the Maine Coast, and that’s not all. He owns the only coal company on the island, still operates the lumber company, is a gas and oil distributor, a ship chandler, a cannery owner. He does a half million dollar a year business from a town of 1.400 population, but you’d never know it by his attitude or by the appearance of his present headquarters.

Only in a Maine island fishing village can you find a store like the one on Barter’s Wharf, Town of Stonington, on Deer Isle, in Penobscot Bay. Odoriferous with tarred rope, oilskins, tobacco smoke and fishermen, it’s partitioned into one corner of a tired old barn-like building that was

once painted red. The store looks small because so much sea-going merchandise is packed around the walls, in front of the counter, and suspended from the walls and ceiling.

Many among the frugal islanders seem to resent Barter’s ability to recognize opportunities they’ve missed for years. Some call him a “hard man to do bizness with.” But the fifty or more men who work for him at one season or another don’t seem to find him hard. Half the “customers” occupying the deacon seat in Barter’s store are on his payroll. Not one jumps up to feign activity when the boss comes in. “I’d fire a man in a minute if I see him do that,” Barter says. “When there’s no work for a man to do I want him to sit down and rest his face and hands. It’s dishonest in a man to try and make me think he’s workin’ when we both know damn well he isn’t.”

The Ralph K. Barter Company uses 5,000 barrels a year to ship its lobsters, clams and scallops to a clientele that extends beyond the Mississippi. It would appear that he effects a tidy saving by having his own men assemble the containers. “I figgered it out once,” Ralph Barter says, “and it costs me just ten percent more than it would to have the barrels shipped from the main, all built. But it helps keep my crew together—gives ‘em work during the slack season.”

Barter expects a lot of his men, and usually gets it. “If a man’s taking my wages I expect him to use his head for me as well’s his muscle,” is the way he puts it. “When one of my truck drivers is out collecting clams I expect him to notice whether the clam digger needs a new hoe or mebby a new pair o’ rubber boots, and to remind the man that I sell these things.”

The office of all the Barter companies is a large pine sheathed room. Dainted brown and white, in the loft of the tired old building on Barter’s Stonington wharf. The view includes a glimpse of Ralph Barter’s latest acquisition, the property which got him into competition with Japan.

Just as it was the Eastern Steamship Company and its wharves which enabled him to launch the Barter Lumber Company, so it was the Eastern and a wharf which precipitated Ralph Barter into a business which heretofore had been considered the sole province of the Nipponese. The steamship company had abandoned its Stonington run years before but the steamer wharf, with its 40×100-foot waitingroom and freightshed, still remained. It was in excellent repair; a nice big white elephant, eating its head off in taxes. It cost $28,000 to build. Barter offered $300 for it, cash—and got it!

Before he made the offer Barter knew where he could dispose of the material comprising the wharf for a neat little profit of $5,000, and furnish a winter’s work for a dismantling crew, to boot. But it was such a nice big wharf, such a gorgeous white elephant, it seemed too bad to take it down.

Barter did a little figuring. He looked up the owner of an abandoned sardine factory on the main. Then he ambled over to the Stonington Town House.

“What this town needs,” Barter opined, “is a public wharf. One that any craft, from a vessel to a peapod, can tie up to. Something each and ev’ryone can use—free.”

The First Selectman fixed him with a wary eye. “Voters wouldn’t stand for it. Cost too much money.”

“Well, mebbyso. But what if the town could get the use of a wharf like that without it costing the voters a cent? Be a big feather in the selectmen’s cap, wouldn’t it?”

The FS removed his feet from the visitors’ chair and motioned for Barter to “set.” Before Barter left the chair the First Selectman had promised to lower to $108 the $800 annual town tax on the $28,000 property Ralph Barter had bought for $300—in return for Barter’s promise of free wharf privileges for the town. A week later Barter had engaged sixty diggers and operators, installed a boiler and retorts from the abandoned sardine factory; and the Deer Isle Canning Company was born, in, of all places, the Eastern Steamship Company’s erstwhile waiting room.

The opening of a clam-canning plant on the wharf that was too good to be worth anything because the taxes were too high has worked out pretty well for everyone, including Ralph Barter himself. But it wasn’t until they sent him to the State of Maine Legislature for the second time that he actually got into competition with Japan.

This came about because there is nothing the Down East fishermen detest more than crabs. Even dogfish or sand fleas are preferable to the thieving crustaceans which get into the lobster-pots, steal the bait and otherwise make life burdensome to lobstermen.

Imagine the surprise of Ralph Barter when an act regulating the taking of crabs was consigned to the Legislative Committee on Sea and Shore Fisheries, of which he was a member. And imagine his chagrin when he learned that the astute Portland fishermen had worked up for themselves a right profitable little business in the crustaceans which his own Down Easters threw away in disgust. As soon as the legislature adjourned, the solon from the Penobscot Archipelago hied himself to Casco Bay to learn what, if any, were the reasons his constituents couldn’t make money out of crabs, too.

Right away he found reasons.

To begin with, the Penobscot Bay area was too far from the big city markets to deal in fresh crabmeat, as the Casco Bay fishermen did. Furthermore, the meat of Maine crabs could not be canned except by a registered formula the use of which entailed a prohibitive royalty. And even if you could can Maine crabmeat you couldn’t sell it on account of low-price competition from

Japan. In other words, Down East crabs were as big a nuisance as everyone had always said they were, and more too. They were a pestilential abomination, to put it mildly, and anyone who even thought of doing anything with them commercially was crazier than a coot. Which was just the kind of talk Ralph Barter liked to hear.

This Barter man can’t get tired in an ordinary twelve-hour day, so he reads in bed from midnight till two and three in the morning—has done it for years. His mind grips facts like a lobster hangs onto breakfast. For weeks he read books on chemistry and canning at night and experimented in the canning shop by day. Out of this “messing around,” as he calls it, came an original Barter formula for the canning of crabmeat.

So now the Penobscot Bay Islanders no longer curse the once-pestiferous crab. They set for him special traps, designed and built by Ralph Barter, and they cash in on the former pest. Yes, Ralph Barter is canning the crabs no one wanted.

It is doubtful whether the Down East fishermen will ever put the Japanese completely out of the canned crabmeat business, but already Ralph Barter’s canning company is moving to larger quarters. No one seemed to want the big brick building in Stonington which was abandoned by a sardine packing company years ago. So, of course, Barter bought it.

While the new canning machinery is being installed Ralph Barter is “messing around” with a brand new product. Sea urchin is the common name. The fishermen’s name is unprintable. The sea urchin is a little marine animal a-kin to the starfish. It looks like a big thistle, somewhat flattened, but it’s twice as ornery as any thistle that ever saw the land, with hundreds of dark-green-blending-into-purple spines that are sharp as needles. They find ‘em in Down East waters by the millions and a more useless article you never saw in all your born days. That’s why Ralph Barter’s so crazy over ‘em.

Sea-going Italians sometimes eat sea urchins fresh but no one else ever thought of doing anything except avoid them whenever possible—until the something-from-nothing-man cooked some, broke open the brittle shells and concocted of the roe-like meat a canape spread that rivals the spawn of the Russian sturgeon. He’s experimenting now with the canning of this “American caviar.”

“It’s nothing—nothing at all,” Barter says.

Which, if true, ought to net him at least another half-million.

No related posts.

PARLOR PRESTIDIGITATION (Dec, 1952)

2012-05-17T06:06:14Z

PARLOR PRESTIDIGITATION

If you’ve always had a secret urge to be a houseparty Houdini, here are some simple tricks to try on the unsuspecting guests.

Make a burning candle float upright in a glass of water? Sure, it can be done. Weight the bottom of the candle beforehand with a nail or screw and then conceal with melted wax. Plop it all into a glass of water and the balanced candle floats perfectly upright.

Remove the dollar bill from under the tumbler without disturbing the coin perched on the rim of the glass? Simple! lust wrap one end of the bill around a pencil and slowly roll it out. It’ll slip from under the glass smoothly without causing coin on top to stir.

Pass a single calling card around her head? First fold card in half lengthwise. Then make series of cuts a quarter inch apart from folded edge up to within an eighth inch from open edges. Turn card around and cut between original cuts. Open up and slip over head.

Balance a drinking tumbler atop a playing card? Here’s the joker—a little piece of pasteboard bent at right angles to the card and held behind creates a tripod base for the glass. The piece can be slipped up against the card while the gullible spectators look elsewhere.

Slice an unscathed apple and find a penny inside? Well, on the unseen side of the blade a penny is fastened with beeswax. Wedge open the apple with the forepart of the blade and then wipe off the coin so it sticks to the inside of the apple after you’ve penetrated it.

Can you defy gravity by holding the knife without gripping it? As your lower hand squeezes the wrist of the other, the upper fingers open and the knife remains miraculously suspended— that is if you have your forefinger pressed against it from behind.

Make an egg stand on end without injuring the shell? All you have to do is put a little mound of salt under the table cloth before your victims come into the room. This makes a soft bed for the egg on which it can easily be made to stand when suckers are watching.

Can you make five or more boxes of matches perch one atop the other with such security that you can tilt the entire batch without spilling? It’s a cinch if you extend the inner casing of each box into the outer casing of the next one, giving the whole column of boxes a stiff bracing.

READERS SPEAK OUT: Sex before marriage (Sep, 1965)

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READERS SPEAK OUT: Sex before marriage

EDITOR’S NOTE In the December, 1964 issue of this magazine, 4 members of Sexology’s Board of Consultants gave their answers to the question: “What, in your opinion, is the ideal code of sex before marriage toward which society should work for the future?” At that time we also invited our readers to send in their replies to this question.

We continue to publish in these pages some of the answers we have received. Each opinion, of course, represents the private view of the writer, not the editorial position of this publication.

Dear Editor:

Could we be impartial enough in personal beliefs and emotions to look deeply into our own thoughts, many of us would have to admit that the eons of teaching “thou shall not” have generally failed. We would have to admit that marriage had been designed for beliefs in a certain civilization. We would have to agree that monogamy was largely an idealistic state, seldom ever completely arrived at. We would see our present divorce rate, “convenient marriages,” and other aspects of our culture as little better than “legalized sex freedom” or prostitution. We would have to admit many so-called sex crimes to be the results of the “thou shall not” teachings.

Considering the changes brought about (and welcomed) since Victorian days, and considering the hypocritical state we live in now, how can we in honesty fight a generation who is seeking a more realistic, more honest view toward sex?

Deep down, our fight is a fear. We vision a crumpled civilization in which sterilization or abortion clinics, sperm banks, and “baby permits” will be the order of the day.

And yet, if such an era should develop, who are we to say they would be less “good” or less happy than we?

—Mrs. Alice M. Reames, Calif.

Dear Editor:

Until we have learned to accept ourselves as we are and understand the source of our motives, premarital or extra-marital intercourse will in all probability incur some degree of guilt in most cases. Only a relatively small number of our population possesses sufficient knowledge and understanding to adequately control or indulge their inclinations. We should work toward adequate sex knowledge and understanding so that a pel-missive moral attitude could come about, based upon sound mature reasoning. Each individual should be allowed the right and privilege of arriving at an intelligent decision without the resultant moral back-slapping or censure as the case might be.

The rewards of moral freedom may be seen in the Samoan society where aberrations are relatively rare. The fruits of repression may be seen almost daily in our own society in the marked incidence of so-called “perversion,” and in the moral censure and persecution which follows through ignorance.

But isn’t the real question: “If we allow moral freedom for our young people, are we not inviting a future generation of lewdly promiscuous adulterers?” And: “Because I’m not sexually attractive and capable, will I not be left out?”

In the face of so much sex ignorance (we may not be in the dark ages, but we’re close!) we cannot be expected to render an acceptable answer to such questions.

—Jewell W. Thompson, Kevil, Kentucky.

Dear Editor:
To say that “we are in a transition” is only an evasive answer to any problem. Let us not be shy to acknowledge that sex is a powerful—perhaps the most powerful-instinct, and its premarital outlet a necessity.

A male Hindu observed, we are told by historians, centuries before Christ, the Brahmacharya Ashram (life of continence) for his first 25 years, in complete ignorance of the female sex, by living in forests with his teacher That was the good old past. Now, in an era of “toplessness” one may expose oneself to the charge of being frigid if one talks of continence.

Premarital sex relations are not uncommon. The free access to contraceptives has facilitated premarital sex relations. Perhaps most do it only behind a mask. But should not the ideal code for premarital sex drop this mask? I think it would free our conscience and relieve us of all feelings of immorality.

An ideal code which gives recognition to sex before marriage will not be a backward step. Life is like a pendulum and so are its notions of morality. If what Adam and Eve did was not immoral, why should man today designate it so?

—Raj Kumar Gupta, Delhi, India

“WHAT I WANT TO KNOW —before I buy furniture” (Mar, 1930)

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“WHAT I WANT TO KNOW —before I buy furniture”

“I AM through with being sold furniture. Now I want to buy some.

“I am no expert, though I do know something about period styles and can tell a Queen Anne from a Sheraton at forty paces. But I want to know more about workmanship, more about materials, more about the value of furniture and not so much about its price and the ‘agreeable arrangements for deferred payment’.”

This sort of inquiry comes to us daily from hundreds and thousands of women. We cannot give them as much information as they might get from a reputable dealer, but we can point out to anyone who buys furniture a few of the short-cuts to assured quality.

In the first place, concentrate on furniture of American Walnut. There are other beautiful woods, of course, but there is no other which so combines good taste, enduring stylishness, beauty and long life as does American Walnut.

In the second place, look for that furniture in which American Walnut is used for legs, for framework, and for panels. Such use of American Walnut is a guarantee of excellent workmanship—for manufacturers would not slight craftsmanship when they use the best materials. And, “all-walnut” furniture is the best possible assurance of long life. The beauty of American Walnut panels is enduring—the interest and variety of figure, the mellowness of color make American Walnut furniture harmonious in any decorative scheme, charming in any setting.

In the third place, send to us for our forty-eight page booklet* which will give you simple and positive information with which you may always identity American Walnut and distinguish it from its substitutes. You will also find in this booklet interesting facts on the various styles in furniture, on construction points to watch out for, and on the best ways to keep furniture looking its best in your own home. A copy is yours for the asking.

AMERICAN WALNUT

American Walnut Manufacturers Association

Room 2710, 616 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.

* Please send me your brochure “The Story of American Walnut,”

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT BALDNESS? (Apr, 1917)

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“Every theory, you see, is as sound as a dollar. Any one of them is sufficient to sell a hair tonic or commend a new treatment.”

All those damn quacks, claiming they have a cure!

“A modern method which is of undoubted potency in the treatment of premature loss of hair is the ultra-violet ray. This must not be confused with the comparatively useless violet ray lamp.”

Oh.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT BALDNESS?

by William Brady M.D.

ALOPECIA, as physicians call it —they always tack a fancy title an a disease when they know little or nothing about it— ‘ comes in many forms. There is alopecia adnata, which signifies that some people are born bald. Then we have alopecia senilis, implying that a favored few live long enough to achieve it. But the most painful, the most cowardly type of baldness is alopecia prematura, which is thrust upon us by our friend the barber in his tonsorial operations.

The baldness of children is a rare condition in which there is a congenital absence of hair follicles or an arrested development of the hair follicles or roots. We know nothing of the cause, and can give no advice in regard to escaping it.

The baldness of old men, beginning well along past middle age, is an expression of general lowering of nutrition and tendency to atrophy incident to advancing years, appearing earlier or later according to the physiological and not the chronological age of the individual.

A fourth form of baldness is called alopecia areata, baldness in irregular spots, due, in some cases, to a parasitic invasion of the denuded area; in others apparently caused by grave nutritional disturbance accompanying some serious ailment of the nervous system, and in still others being a symptom of constitutional disease.

Theories in explanation of premature baldness are put forward in bewildering array by numerous authorities, not including the barbers themselves, and most of the theories have some foundation in fact. The subject is comparable with tuberculosis. It may be granted that there are innumerable contributing or predisposing factors which tend to lower resistance in one way or another, but only one essential factor for the transfer of the disease, namely, infection.

Thus, Dr. Pincus dwelt upon the hereditary factor, which he said was inherently a tight or stretched scalp muscle peculiar to certain families. Indeed, Pincus considered this the only predisposing cause of premature baldness.

Professor Jamieson vigorously upheld the theory that premature baldness is more frequent among brain workers because the same nerves supply brain coverings and the scalp itself and irritation or congestion of the brain reflexly disturbs the nutrition of the scalp. Plausible, isn’t it, brainy reader?

Dr. King, however, puts forward the compression theory, attributing baldness to the compression by hatbands and tight caps of the frontal, temporal and occipital arteries which nourish the scalp. He ascribes to differences in the shape of the head the varying areas of baldness in different individuals, insisting, for instance, that the tuft often preserved in the middle of the forehead owes its life to the fact that it is nourished by two little arteries which escape pressure by passing up the forehead in concavities between the frontal eminences. Others take issue with him, and ascribe the persistent forelock to the fact that it lies over the belly of the scalp muscle, is freely movable, and has a less tense substratum for its bed.

Professor Ellinger considers the daily wetting of the hair an important cause of premature baldness. Water forms an emulsion with the natural oil or sebum of the scalp and hair, and this emulsion dries and plugs the hair follicle, damming up the sebum in the follicle and so producing atrophy or wasting of the hair root. Every theory, you see, is as sound as a dollar. Any one of them is sufficient to sell a hair tonic or commend a new treatment.

The abnormally tight or stretched scalp which Pincus deems the important factor may be brought about, he asserts, by anxiety of mind, depression of spirits which the subject struggles against, though not by reverses which the subject takes philosophically. This theory does not fit well with the popular idea of the good-naturedness of bald-headed men— but as a matter of fact bald pates are no better natured than men with movie adornment of the loveliest kind. The foolish, apologetic smile on the countenance of a bald-headed man is no criterion of the way he treats his wife.

Dr. Parker, some years ago, presented a strong thesis in support of the idea that certain toxins formed in the lungs when breathing is habitually shallow or the subject confined in bad air, are concerned in the production of premature baldness. He declared that insufficient expansion of the upper part of the lung, the apex, was accountable for the trouble, and that women, being chest breathers perforce, seldom go bald.

Getting down to the real science of alopecia, there are three characteristic stages. First, unnatural oiliness of scalp and hair, which is called seborrhoea, that is, excessive flow of sebum from the oil glands which discharge their secretion upon the base of the hair shaft, and normally keep the skin and hair soft and pliable. Second, dandruff, known as seborrhoea sicca, drying of the secretion and the unsightly scales and crusts that fall upon the shoulders. Finally, falling of the hair.

Lassar and Bishop contributed to our knowledge the contagious character of dandruff. They took dandruff scales from the head of a student who was losing his hair, mixed them with a little vaseline and rubbed the material into the back of a guinea pig, much as a barber might massage your scalp for you, if you were foolish enough to let him. The pig presently became bald. Professor Sabouraud rallies to the support of his colleagues by discovering that the whole business, seborrhoea, dandruff and falling hair, is caused by a very minute parasite which burrows its way down alongside of the hair shaft, reaches the oil gland always connected with the hair shaft, sets up chronic irritation and inflammation of the gland, causing its excessive outpouring of oil, and finally arrives at the follicle or hair root, which it proceeds to destroy, not so rapidly, of course, but just as surely in the end as does the electric needle. Upon this pestiferous microbe Sabouraud has conferred the title micro-bacillus Sabouraudii. And it is the most tenacious little bug a man ever got in his bonnet!

Now we have the whole matter before us as clear as any one could wish. Resistance lowered by heredity, faulty personal hygiene, unhygienic clothing, bad care of scalp. Bugs gratuitously contributed by the barber, who doesn’t know how to be sterile or aseptic, in the first place, and sees no need of it in the next place—for unfortunately Sabouraud’s ubiquitous little germ is as invisible as “cold” microbes in the gentle spray of an open-face sneeze.

We’ve got the bug. What are we going to do about it? Just rub in some antiseptic and kill it? That would seem the simplest thing in the world to any but the medical mind. Alas, it can’t be done. As a matter of fact, no antiseptic substance has yet been discovered which will destroy germs in the living tissues of the body (in, not on the surface) without dangerously injuring the tissues. We have no antiseptic powerful enough to kill germs in the skin without destroy- ing the skin itself. Many a remedy purports to accomplish this miracle, it is true, but it can’t be done. Such germs as may have invaded the hair follicles must be destroyed, if at all, by the natural defensive forces of the body. Our preventive effort should be directed toward aiding these natural defensive forces and warding off further invasions and reinforcement of the enemy.

If there is an agent which, without seriously injuring the scalp, possesses real germicidal power in the tissue of the scalp, it is light. All the sunlight the scalp will stand, short of sunburn or sunstroke, is beneficial to the vitality of the hair. The reason why dark-haired people more commonly become bald than light haired people is that dark hair excludes light from the scalp. Yet the Indians did not go bald—but, then, they never visited a barber shop, so they harbored no micro-bacilli to destroy their hair. Possibly ultra-violet (not the violet ray) light may be a good substitute for sunlight. The ultra-violet light may be applied cold, thus making a larger dose applicable than the subject can stand in the heat of the sun. Of course, sunlight includes ultraviolet as well as violet rays.

Cleanliness aids nature’s defensive forces by removing irritation. A shampoo, however, is rather an evil necessity of civilized life and not particularly beneficial to the hair. Animals living wild require no scrubbing to keep themselves perfectly clean. The dust and grime of civilization, retained upon the body by clothing, makes bathing and shampooing more or less essential for cleanliness. The frequency of a shampoo is insignificant—it must be done often enough to keep the scalp clean. The kind of soap is also insignificant—any soap fit for the skin is fit for the hair and scalp. But it is very important to rinse the scalp and hair several times to remove all soap, with several changes of first warm and then cooler water. It is also important to dry the hair and scalp as thoroughly and promptly as possible, and then to rub into the scalp any oil, such as vaseline, in small quantity, just sufficient to replace the oil removed by washing. Medicaments may be incorporated with this oily application, such as salicylic acid or sulphur or resorcin (1% or 2% of either) for excessive oiliness of the scalp and hair, or higher proportions for more troublesome dandruff.

Brushing and massage are measures of the utmost value in postponing baldness. From the very ease with which a man’s hair is dressed he neglects to brush it enough to stimulate the scalp. Something like a hundred strokes of the brush each night and morning would be a fair amount of brushing for the average scalp.

The hair brush should be one which is not injured by boiling. There are at least two popular brushes which meet this demand—the so-called prophylactic and the ideal. The former is better for men’s hair and the latter for women’s. The brush should be shampooed as often as the scalp, and at least dipped in boiling water to disinfect it. A man should lose no time in getting home from the barber shop to take a thorough shampoo, including the hair brush.

Massage of the scalp is the remedy which has given more than one alleged hair tonic a reputation. Outside of a few medicaments which seem to exert some effect upon oily and dry dandruff, it is foolish to imagine that irritants or chemicals of any sort can improve the growth of the hair. A “hair tonic” is about as logical a thing as a tooth tonic, a skin tonic, a nail tonic or a brain food. And pasting a French name on it doesn’t alter the fact in the least.

It is questionable whether the manipulations a barber calls massage are worth while. The purpose of scalp massage is to increase the nutrition of the hair follicles by improving the blood supply. The blood supply is poor because of the tightness of the scalp, as we have already explained. Massage, therefore, should loosen the scalp by lifting it up in folds and rolling these folds between the fingers. It is an exercise, and better when done by the individual himself. Grasp the scalp with the wide open hand, forcibly draw the fingers toward the palm, heaping up a little fold of scalp under them. Go over the entire scalp in this way, changing hands occasionally, for the hand soon tires, until the whole head glows.

A modern method which is of undoubted potency in the treatment of premature loss of hair is the ultra-violet ray. This must not be confused with the comparatively useless violet ray lamp. The ultra-violet ray is colorless; it is the actinic or chemical ray beyond the violet in the spectrum, and capable of inducing powerful physiological changes which the violet light cannot produce at all. The ultra-violet ray is obtained from a powerful electric light which is passed through a lens in which cold water continuously circulates, absorbing the heat but not the light. The cool ray is then focused upon the area to be treated through a quartz lens, not an ordinary glass lens. The ultra-violet apparatus simply places the power of sunlight, which we know is the greatest germicide and the strongest stimulant of growth and nutrition man can endure, within the control of the physician, at any time of any kind of day or night. In the average case of falling hair, when there is not an excessive seborrlioea (oily condition of scalp or dandruff), three treatments with the ultra-violet ray, given fortnightly, stop the process. In more advanced cases further treatments are desirable. Perhaps the ultra-violet ray—which of course no barber or other unskilled operator can manage—and massage offer the greatest hope to the victim of premature loss of hair.

Eternal cleanliness is the price of a good head of hair. Premature baldness will prevail until the coming of the aseptic barber and the aerated lid.

NEW for the ROAD (Jul, 1950)

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NEW for the ROAD

Vetmobile. constructed of obsolete airplane parts by Edward Adkins of Palo Alto, enables handicapped ex-GI’s to drive. It uses either a gas engine or an electric motor. Built-in hydraulic jacks simplify wheel changing. It has a two-way radio and a key-making machine is mounted on the car’s side (see photo).

Variable Lenses feature the latest style in Polaroid sunglasses for motorists. Each is adjusted separately to the required intensity by a tiny lever beneath the frame. In this photo the left lens has been turned to darkest position. Made by the Pioneer Scientific Corp., 295 Lafayette St., N. Y. 12.

Fifteen Seconds to change your wheel and tire is the claim of Lothar Stanetzki, of Bonn, Germany, who has worked on his invention for ten years. It can be installed in the hub of any auto wheel and is locked and unlocked by a key. Stanetzki says he has been offered $5 million for his device by a U.S. manufacturer.

Tomorrow’s Car may be propelled by this Boeing Airplane gas turbine nearly ready for market. The power producing section, left, and the power output section at the right, are joined by a shroud but have no mechanical connection. The turbine develops high torque without usual gears.

MISSILE VS. MISSILE (Sep, 1947)

2012-05-17T03:18:45Z

Anti-Ballistic Missiles that can hit their targets with a high probability have proven very difficult to produce. While we’ve had some success with intercepting medium range missiles, taking down ICBMs has been much harder. Bonus: check out this crazy video of a kill vehicle guidance and tracking being tested.

Related: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, complete with cutting edge, 3-D drop shadow technology.

MISSILE VS. MISSILE

A rocket expert looks at our chances of withstanding a missile invasion.

BY WILLY LEY

SOMEBODY said recently that he would not be surprised if the AAF were researching itself out of business, at least as far as flying personnel is concerned. This somewhat surprising statement was based on the fact that a good number of the research projects which have been made known are aimed at high-velocity flight, either true supersonic flight or something close to it. Most of this fast flying would necessarily take place at very high altitudes where there is not too much air to interfere. And since the ramjet, the rocket and the rocket airplane can be improved more than the pilot, the pilotless missile is bound to be the final result in many cases.

That there are important advantages on the side of the pilotless missile, especially the long-range missile, has been recognized for quite some time. Soon after the end of the war in Europe my friend A. V. Cleaver of de Havilland Aircraft (England) pointed out that V-2 rockets might be actually cheaper than bombers as far as the delivery of high-explosive is concerned.

It is true that a V-2 burns up a little over eight tons of alcohol and expensive liquid oxygen in order to carry a one-ton bomb over a distance of 200 miles. It is also true that a large bomber can carry about eight times the bomb load of a V-2; but it costs over 30 times as much. It also needs a crew whose training is a big item in the budget. It needs hangars and airports with long runways.

In order to compete with V-2 rockets, as regards poundage of bombs delivered per dollar of expenditure, a bomber would have to fly about a hundred missions before retirement. We all know that bombers, as a rule, did not fly a hundred missions. And bombers can still be grounded by bad weather, long-range rockets are not. Bombers could be intercepted by fighters or from the ground, long-range rockets could not. The only real advantage of the bomber during the last year of the last war, was higher bombing accuracy and longer range.

With atomic bombs accuracy is no longer important.

And the range of long-range rockets can be increased. It may be a tough job to do so, but it can be done. The only open question is whether long range rockets will stay non-interceptible for all time to come. When the V-2 rockets were used, interception was impossible and it would be interesting to learn whether it was tried at all. Londoners saw falling V-2′s on occasion, and it is conceivable that an antiaircraft gunner fired a shot or two. If so, and if he did score a hit, it would probably just have meant that the warhead of the V-2 rocket crashed into the city a few hundred yards away from the point where it would have crashed otherwise.

Could specially designed anti-aircraft artillery, or anti-aircraft missiles do better? Let’s see how much space, or rather how much time they would have to work m.

A V-2 rocket—to stick to something that is known and in actual existence—travels along a trajectory which looks like, and is, the chopped off upper section of an ellipse. The two points where the ellipse touches the ground are 200 miles apart, the distance measured along the ellipse is a little short of 300 miles, and the highest point midway between take-off and crash is 70 miles above the ground. The highest velocity along that trajectory is almost precisely one mile per second, but when the rocket returns to the ground, entering denser layers of the atmosphere, it is greatly retarded, striking with “only” about 1,000 mph or a little less than 1/3 of a mile per second. The whole trip makes a few seconds short of five minutes.

Since radar cannot “see” over the horizon, no present or future radar set could catch the rocket at actual take-off, but it can do so when it rises above the horizon. If the defense is lucky, their radars will give them some four minutes’ warning before impact. When the rocket is 12 miles above the target area, there are still 36 seconds left, but that is not enough time for anti-aircraft artillery. An anti-aircraft shell needs about that long to climb to 10 miles. The shell would get where the rocket was half a minute ago at about the time the rocket crashes into the ground. Of course the guns could be fired half a minute earlier (one minute prior to the crash of the rocket) at the point where the rocket will be 30 seconds later. But it is obvious that it would need a large and probably practically unfeasible expenditure of anti-aircraft shells to hit a falling rocket. And if a rocket carries an atomic warhead the explosion of that atomic charge a few miles above a city is nothing pleasant to contemplate.

Obviously, interception should take place much earlier than 30 seconds before crashing, and especially at a time when the rocket is not almost vertically over the target area but a large number of miles away horizontally, so that the explosion of the presumed atomic warhead takes place very high and at considerable distance from the target area.

Anti-aircraft guns don’t have the necessary long reach to do that, but rockets have. The only possibility for intercepting a long range rocket is another long range rocket. A rocket held in readiness and fired at the instant where the radars catch the enemy rocket rising above the horizon, will theoretically intercept the enemy rocket reasonably near the halfway mark. It would be almost a hundred miles away and some 50 miles up, virtually in empty space where even an atomic explosion would not do any damage.

Naturally you could not intercept a long-range rocket at such a distance simply by aiming at it. The intercepting rocket would need special devices and the weight of these special devices would probably cause the intercepting rocket to be as large as the attacking rocket. Guiding the intercepting rocket by means of radar leaps to mind as a possibility, but to be reasonably accurate, even with a proximity fuze and with a defensive atomic warhead, would require several ground radar sets, spaced far apart.

It sounds more likely to equip the intercepting rocket with a homing device. We can assume that the attacking rocket is hot. The skin of the attacking rocket must have heated up on its upward path even if not as much as it will heat up on the downward path. The ascending rocket is slowest where the air is densest near the ground, while the descending rocket is fast in the dense air. And the rocket motor, even if cooled, must still be radiating some heat a few minutes after burning. This should be enough for a sensitive heat device. And it is hard to see how an atomic warhead carried by a rocket can be shielded well enough not to leak at least some radiation.

It is known that there are heat-homing devices, and devices which respond to the radiation which must leak from a comparatively large mass of plutonium can probably be developed too. The problem will be to make them both light and sensitive enough.

All of this will probably be full of practical difficulties which will not be easily overcome. But a long-range rocket is no longer completely immune to interception. Theoretically, another long-range rocket, guided by radar and equipped with homing devices, can meet it in mid trajectory high up in the upper layers of the stratosphere. But it must be borne in mind that even the most elaborately equipped anti-missiles will not be able to account for every one of a succession of attacking rockets. Some of the attackers are bound to “get through.” And if ten rockets with atomic warheads out of a hundred that were fired at a given target area succeed in escaping the intercepting missiles, it is—for all practical purposes—as bad as if they had all reached the target. •

TIME TO STOP “JUST PLANNING” A TRIP TO HAWAII (May, 1934)

2012-05-16T14:43:02Z

When I think of a vacation in Hawaii, tuxedos are not the first thing that comes to mind.

TIME TO STOP “JUST PLANNING” A TRIP TO HAWAII

Along with thousands of others, you may be planning to go to Hawaii some day. It would be only natural. This island paradise has won a permanent place in the affections of the world. Somehow it sums up rest, recreation, rejuvenation.

What may at first have seemed extravagant overstatement concerning these islands of eternal May has proved a matter of statistics. Even the most prose-minded visitors to Hawaii have grown lyrical in singing its praises and started others planning to go.

But now you can stop “just planning”, for the time of going and the cost of getting there are down to practical figures. A visit to Hawaii may now be included easily in the usual vacation period. Fast steamer and train schedules make it possible. It’s less than five days to Honolulu from Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Vancouver! The cost one way from the Pacific Coast as low as $110. . . First Class! $75.. . Cabin Class! Furthermore, rail fares are reduced and Pullman surcharges are abolished … a combination of inducements that urge “go now”

No more beautiful, more popular season than summer to enjoy Hawaii Gentle trade breezes to cool you, a mingling of ginger lily and hundreds of other sweet-scented blossoms to delight your senses.

Remember, too, “Hawaii’” is, not just one, but a cluster of islands of unsurpassed beauty … Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, linked by modern airplane and steamer facilities, Hotel accommodations are of the best, both from the standpoint of service and reasonable rates.

HAWAII TOURIST BUREAU
209 Market Street, San Francisco
245 Pet. Sec. Bldg., Los Angeles

A community organization with headquarters in Honolulu, for the dissemination of free authoritative information about the entire Territory of Hawaii, U.S.A.

TIME TO STOP “JUST PLANNING” A TRIP TO HAWAII

Floating Cottages (Jul, 1956)

2012-05-16T14:42:52Z

Floating Cottages

These beautiful new houseboats offer water lovers who can’t afford the luxury of a yacht all the advantages for lazy living.

Custom made Steel King is 46-footer sleeping four or more. Built by Grafton Boat Works.

This 24-foot job by the River Queen Boat Works has five-inch draft, costs $2,695.

Twin-hulled Spartan Mariner boasts three-room apt. Falls City Flying Service. Inc.

Floatahome is a 24-foot combination trailer-houseboat. Builders Norman Frey and Lawrence Pokallus estimate its cost at $2,500. less the motors.

MIRROR PART OF COMB (Dec, 1932)

2012-05-16T14:42:41Z

MIRROR PART OF COMB

A pocket comb that carries a mirror at one end is the handy toilet accessory produced by a Portland, Ore., inventor. The round glass is permanently set in the hard rubber of the comb. The “two-in-one” comb is five and a half inches long, slipping easily into pocket or handbag.

King Coal’s Sculptor (Mar, 1950)

2012-05-16T14:42:06Z

King Coal’s Sculptor

By H. W. Kellick

A dirty hunk of coal is the last place where you’d look for beauty. But every day Charles Cunningham of Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, conjures beautiful animals, art objects or busts of famous people out of ugly lumps of anthracite.

To work this black magic, Cunningham goes down into the mine himself to pick out his own pieces of coal. Back in his home shop, he splits a big hunk with hammer and chisel to the size he wants for his new creation. Then he carefully chips and carves this piece into shape. Just how he gets the mirror-like surface that marks his masterpieces, though, is one magic rite he won’t reveal.

His unique carvings have won him world-wide fame. For our rough-riding President Teddy Roosevelt he made a special club of coal to symbolize his “Big Stick” policy. For Babe Ruth he carved a bat; for the Philadelphia Athletics, a set of baseballs; and for Notre Dame, a full-size football of solid anthracite to celebrate their gridiron glory. He also has made religious statuary for the late King of Italy.

Cunningham’s father, James, a coal miner, taught his son this unusual carving after he had turned his coal-whittling hobby into a full-time fine art. When he died, Charles became Old King Coal’s one and only sculptor. •

HERE’S YOUR FUTURE CAR! (Sep, 1947)

2012-05-15T05:52:30Z

HERE’S YOUR FUTURE CAR!

MI’s auto expert, Tom McCahill, went to the car manufacturers and got the straight dope on what you can expect in the coming decade.

SLEEK, beetle-high cars with retractable wings and power plants capable of jetlike acceleration, even when climbing Pike’s Peak, are some of the things many Americans have been led to believe were a matter of months away. We have dreamed or thought of the day when our American cars would resemble Buck Rogers creations and perform accordingly. As the war drew to a close, we heard rumors of super streamlined beauties in the works which would make anything we knew of automobiles in the past seem antiquated.

So what happened? Instead of super designs with super power plants, the postwar 1946 offerings were, for the most part, poorly disguised pre-war models. Many manufacturers had gone chrome happy in dressing up the front ends of their new cars so that they looked like the familiar juke box in the corner drugstore. A few added a bit of horsepower but, essentially, all were just yesterday’s stew with a bright dash of tabasco to keep things from getting monotonous. Studebaker got the jump on the others, however, by first bringing out a 1946 old hat and quickly shelving it a month or two later to introduce a really new type of body design, and most automotive authorities feel Studebaker will be getting the credit for a standard appearance when all cars will look like 1947 Studebakers to one degree or another before 1949.

Industrial designers cause a lot of ulcers among the manufacturers with hopped up creations which are pictured in our press from time to time symbolizing what future America will look like. All of us have seen their wild fantasies depicting future automobiles, worm high above the ground, tapering to a needle point many yards astern. We have seen pictures of automobile interiors that made Cleopatra’s quarters on the royal barge look like the left wing of a flophouse, power plants so sleek and streamlined you couldn’t even get fuel into them, and other surrealist pipe dreams.

Another fellow who causes unrest among our motoring public is the feature writer who interviews these geniuses and then writes articles practically advising all car owners not to be too anxious or hasty in buying a new car, because just beyond the horizon is the car of the century with hot and cold running carburetors, and so forth. You’ve read these articles and so have I, but as the automobile manufacturers are the ones who have to make all these gems, perhaps their opinions on future transportation might prove a little more accurate, if not as colorful reading. They are the ones who will have the final say when it comes to different power plants, rear-end drive, and all other additions or changes including size and body design.

With this in mind, I contacted executives and chief engineers of every major automobile company in America. Besides these I questioned independent designers and automotive authorities from coast to coast. I asked them all the same questions and though I got a variety of answers many of them ran in such similar pattern that a number of definite conclusions come out about our automobiles not only a year or so from today, but ten years from now. Of course, in ten years many things can happen that can alter some of these ideas but a lot of them will stand. However, what’s most revealing is how the important brains of the automotive industry are thinking today. Before continuing, I must say the executives and chief engineers of two companies refused to answer my questions but all others cooperated fully.

The first question asked was “Do you expect the engines of future cars to be designed to use 100-octane fuel or higher?”

The answer to this was in general no, but with two notable exceptions. Wilbur Shaw, only three-time winner at the track of which he is now President, Indianapolis Motor Speedway (where just about every known mechanical part and design on our present automobiles were developed), feels that our engines in the near future will be operating on 100-octane gasoline. I cannot stress too strongly what Shaw’s opinion means, as he is in direct contact with nearly all racing developments and, though few may realize it, our present cars were race cars just a few years ago. To illustrate: this means your four-wheel hydraulic brakes, spark plugs, tires, shock absorbers, steering geometry, frames, rear axles, present fuel, oil, short stroke, high compression engines, carburetion, spring suspension, pressure cooling and dozens of other features, all sprang directly from the Indianapolis track and no place else. So, you can see how Shaw’s thoughts may, in some cases, indicate definite eventualities regardless of the manufacturers’ views on the subject at the moment.

Harold T. Youngren, vice-president in charge of engineering at the Ford Motor Company, also feels 100-octane gas will be used but not for some time. His point being that, though we realize higher octane gasoline means more power and economy of consumption, a number of changes must take place before we are ready to utilize the possibilities. For one thing, higher octane gas means higher compression ratio with a greater tendency to rougher or high strung engine. Bearing stresses and other problems of a kindred nature are magnified many times. Youngren does feel, though, that this higher rate of fuel will be used when new combustion chambers are designed to promote a more uniform burning rate, at the same time eliminating peaks of explosion pressure that would now produce roughness and spark knock. It is also wise to remember, as he points out, that though higher octane gasoline, alcohol and other fuels offer a bright promise, a price factor comes into this, plus availability and distribution at our present comparatively low cost of gasoline.

So—what is the answer to number one? Most engineers feel that the gas octane rating will remain much as it is, whereas Shaw and Youngren, two wideawake and progressive engineers themselves, feel there is a place eventually for premium fuel.

The second question also pertained to fuel. The question was “Do you think there is a possibility that a different type of fuel may be used, such as alcohol and benzine or perhaps atomic energy in some form?”

In general, the answer was no, but Wilbur Shaw again felt that there is a possibility of solids or semi-solids being developed, but that there is not much chance of their being used for a number of years. He also feels that ultimately some form of atomic energy may be used but hardly before another decade has passed. The others thought there was little or no chance for a change, except for Youngren, whose remarks are mentioned above.

The third question was “What are the chances of the power plants being gas turbines or jet propelled?”

William B. Stout, former head of research, Consolidated Aircraft, and who recently developed a spun-glass plastic rear-engine-drive car that caused a sensation in national magazines and news-reels just a few months ago, said no such changes will take place for the next 15 years. Shaw feels that gas turbines are quite possible but that jet propelled autos are definitely out, due to the inefficiency of this type of unit for automotive use. All others said very little or no chance.

Question number four was “Do you expect that in five years or more rear engines will become popular?”

It wasn’t surprising that Stout should come out with a definite yes. It must be remembered that Stout’s present sensational car is rear-engine drive; also, that a number of years ago he manufactured a car called the Scarab, which was a rear-engine drive affair. He has been a rear-engine advocate for a number of years. Shaw also feels there is a good chance for rear-engine cars and goes on to say that they will undoubtedly become popular as soon as the leading manufacturers are assured the public will accept them. All others say possible but not probable. However, one interesting comment was made by Youngren, who said there is very little chance as the advantage is questionable and the cost excessive.

The fifth question was “Do you expect front-wheel drive to replace today’s rear-drive in popularity?”

Joseph W. Frazer answered this question, yes, there will be front-wheel drives in popular use. It must be remembered that Frazer is president of the company that manufactures the Kaiser and the Frazer, the latter of which was scheduled for a front-wheel drive originally, though it made its initial public appearance as a rear-drive car. The writer drove a Kaiser with front-wheel drive and thought it was very wise when they switched to the conventional method, however Frazer’s present comment would indicate that some of the bugs have been eliminated. Wilbur Shaw’s comment on this was definitely no. He said if you had ever seen a front-drive car trying to paw its way up a wet grease rack, you would quickly understand. The lack of traction is almost unbelievable and the manufacturers’ cost is extreme. Stout qualifies his no by saying it will be usable only in tiny cars, not over 15 hp. All other manufacturers just replied no.

My sixth question was “Will future engines develop more horsepower?”

The answer was an almost unanimous, yes! With the one exception of Youngren, who pointed out that horsepower will depend on economic conditions more than anything else. He said we are reaching a point of diminishing returns and that we have ample horsepower to produce as much performance as modern highways can safely handle. The writer must get his oar in at this point and say in spite of Youngren’s answer, I know that Ford and Mercury have scheduled the manufacture of engines of more horsepower, so his answer was a bit bewildering to me. Perhaps he means there will be no increase after the next models.

Question number seven was “Will the engines be higher speed than those of today?”

The answer was again unanimous, yes, with the same exception, Youngren, who answered “Possibly, although the best economy is attained at slower speeds.”

In number eight I asked “What do you expect will be the standard cruising speeds of cars five to ten years from now?”

Only three answered this directly. All others stated it would depend entirely on highway development. The three who answered were Stout, who said cruising speed of 70, Frazer, 80, and Shaw 80 to 90.

Number nine asked “Do you believe all gear shifting will be automatic?”

All but Frazer said yes. Frazer replied, leaving himself a loop-hole, “Not until some- one develops a better automatic clutch than we have now.”

The tenth question was “Will the popular priced cars be larger, smaller, or about the same as they are today?”

Here, we have a direct contradiction of ideas. For instance, some of the replies were as follows: Roy Cole, vice-president and chief engineer of Studebaker and the man credited with bringing out the most sensational car of the year, answered they will be smaller. Bill Stout said they will be smaller outside with the same amount of room inside, while Ford felt they would be about the same and Frazer said they will be larger. So, on this question, take your pick!

Questions eleven and twelve “Do you expect the cars will be much lower in over-all height” and “Will the cars have more interior room?”

It is interesting how the answers to this question ran. Roy Cole of Studebaker answered that the cars won’t be any lower and won’t have any more interior room. He is undoubtedly using his car as a criterion which is worm high as you know and has the most interior room from the standpoint of seat width of any car on the market, except the Kaiser and Frazer, both of which have even more room than the Studebaker. Frazer replied that the cars will be lower but not much, and he also said the cars will have more interior room. All others said more interior space and lower silhouette.

In question number thirteen I asked “What features do you expect to make the greatest strides—body-design, engine design, safety-factors or general performance?”

This brought an astounding similarity, all answering body-design with the exception of Shaw, who rated body-design second to engine development. You can see from this that the manufacturers are interested in eye-appeal, which they have recognized for years as the strongest selling point.

Question number fourteen “Do you expect a change in highway systems so that coast-to-coast trips can be made in future cars in three days or less with no more effort than it takes to do it in six now?”

In going over the answers to this question, it is interesting to see that the ‘conservative, stable manufacturers, for the most part, played cozy and it is also interesting to see that the men who already have proven themselves fearlessly outspoken, said yes. J. W. Frazer is the only man with long automotive manufacturing experience who came out flatly and said, “Yes, we’ll be able to make the coast-to-coast trip in three days.” Shaw answered, “Absolutely, super-highways by- passing towns will make a three-day trip from coast to coast quite simple.”

As one who had driven coast to coast many times I must say I wholly agree with these two. A continuation of the Pennsylvania turnpike or similar road would make it a cinch.

Question number fifteen was “How many years do you think it will be before we have combination car-planes or flying automobiles on the market and do you expect that these will eventually totally replace the regular automobile that won’t fly?”

All answered either “not practical” or “not in demand,” with the exception of Stout who was working along these ideas some years ago and who says we will have roadable planes in ten years but even he added to his answer the comment that they will not replace the regular automobile. Wilbur Shaw thought we will have roadable planes on the market shortly but they will leave much to be desired, for, as he points out, a roadable aircraft or flying auto will not be a good car or a good plane, but they will be available on the market.

What conclusions can we draw from these answers? They may be a great disappointment to a lot of readers who have been waiting for that bang-up highly modernized vision. There will be changes leading off with body-design but they will come slowly, in pre-war evolution, a few improvements each year. As I see it, the war cost us five years of advancement and next year’s cars will in reality be 1943 or 1944 models instead of 1948. The manufacturers, like insurance companies, must move slowly for two very good reasons. First, they can’t afford to get so far ahead of their competitors that they have an apparent freak on their hands which the public must be educated to, thus costing millions through sales resistance to the stockholders. Second, because the fewer changes they have to make the easier it is not only from a standpoint of economy but from a standpoint of production to get their product on the market.

The answers to the questions would indicate that such things as super fuels, rear-engine cars and production line roadable planes are still part of a quite distant future. However, as the 1947 Studebaker has shown, the cars will soon be lower and wider with an increase in interior room through design, and with greatly increased visibility which will radically change appearance and comfort. The engines will have more horsepower and will be higher speed than any we have now, assuring more flexibility. All gear shifting will soon be automatic but such things as jet propulsion and gas turbine power plants will have to wait for another decade. •

Oddly Decorated Summer Parasols Add Novel Touch to Fashions (Oct, 1924)

2012-05-15T05:52:09Z

Oddly Decorated Summer Parasols Add Novel Touch to Fashions

Sunshades grotesquely decorated with fur, feathers and various kinds of fabrics have appeared at some of the English resorts as novelties in summer fashions. Designs of different kinds of flowers and birds are worked on them, forming distinctive touches to the beach or holiday costume. One of the first of this style bore a realistic representation of a cat’s face of white fur with painted glass eyes.

SIXTY-FOOT BUS TO CARRY VISITORS AT WORLD’S FAIR (Dec, 1932)

2012-05-15T05:51:48Z

SIXTY-FOOT BUS TO CARRY VISITORS AT WORLD’S FAIR
Sixty feet long, but able to turn in its own length, is a bus designed to carry visitors about the grounds at the Chicago World’s Fair, next year. Of a semi-trailer type, it will accommodate fifty seated passengers and forty-five standing. A fleet of sixty of the machines has been ordered at a cost of $300,000. Two of them are already in use at the fair grounds and another will soon start on a tour of the country, carrying a miniature reproduction of the World’s Fair as it will appear when ready to be opened to the public. The tour will be for the purpose of advertising the big attraction.

“BOW LEGS and KNOCK-KNEES” UNSIGHTLY (Mar, 1922)

2012-05-15T05:51:27Z

“BOW LEGS and KNOCK-KNEES” UNSIGHTLY

SEND FOR BOOKLET SHOWING PHOTOS OF MEN WITH AND WITHOUT THE PERFECT LEG FORMS

PERFECT SALES CO.,
140 N. Mayfield Ave., Dept. P
Chicago, Ill.

Bicycle Radio is Easy and Cheap to Build (Apr, 1940)

2012-05-15T05:53:06Z

Bicycle Radio is Easy and Cheap to Build

By ARTHUR C. MILLER

FANS who would like to install a radio on their bicycles so they can enjoy their favorite programs while riding around town or on short trips will find the inexpensive set described on these pages just what they have been looking for. Fitting in a basket mounted on the handlebars, the battery-operated, four-tube receiver contains its own loudspeaker. It gives excellent results on local broadcast stations, and if iron-core coils instead of the air-space type specified are used this range will be increased.

Owing to the directional properties of a loop antenna, a 4′ metal rod was chosen instead. The metal rod is connected directly to the grid cap of the radio-frequency tube. Both of the set’s coils are tuned by a midget two-gang tuning condenser, which is mounted on the sloping panel by means of two right-angle brackets.

The antenna rod is insulated from the metal cabinet by a ceramic standoff insulator. The tops of these insulators are usually threaded, and the best method of attaching the aluminum rod is to thread it to fit, and screw it into the insulator. For greater signal strength, the set will have to be grounded. The bicycle frame provides excellent counterpoise capacity for this purpose.

The steel cabinet used for housing the chassis and batteries measures 6-1/2″ by 7″ by 11″ and is small enough to fit inside a standard-size bicycle luggage basket. The panel is attached to the cabinet by means of self-tapping screws. The two “B” batteries that fit inside the cabinet along the back are the new small-size portable type employing the special flat cells with expanding seals. A 1-1/2 -volt “A” battery fits in between the two “B” batteries, with the 4-1/2-volt “C” battery directly in front of it. The “A” and “B” batteries are of the plug-in type and use clip-in plugs with Fahnestock terminals. This system makes it an easy matter to change batteries whenever necessary.

In order to obtain ample volume from the speaker, two stages of audiofrequency amplification are used after the detector. Both stages are resistance-coupled and use the latest-type tubes for maximum sensitivity. Type 1N5GT tubes are used in the radio-frequency, detector, and first audio-frequency stages. A beam power tube, 1T5GT, is used in the output stage, and provides a relatively high output with a very low filament drain.

A 15,000-ohm, 1/2-watt resistor is used in the grid circuit of the first audio tube. Any increase in value of this resistor will only cause instability and will fail to in- crease the amplification. Volume is controlled by a 100,000-ohm potentiometer placed in the screen circuit of the radio-frequency tube.

The key-lock switch is of the double-pole, single-throw type and breaks two circuits at one time, the positive “A” supply and the ground lead of the volume control. This is done to avoid any drain through the “B” supply while the set is turned off.

As a safety measure, it is a good idea to lock the set in the basket or to the bicycle frame. The key switch prevents anyone else from turning on the set.

The “Moroccan Princess” Who Had the Laugh on London (Nov, 1959)

2012-05-14T08:26:57Z

She doesn’t seem to have made a huge impression, at least that I can find online. There is a reference in a publication called Theater Arts and one called Hispano Americano, but Google isn’t allowed to actually show the full content.

The “Moroccan Princess” Who Had the Laugh on London

A masquerading model, a pot of murky makeup and London got a royal ribbing.

By HANS HOBEL

“–UNDER ANY LIGHT. She looked divine under any light—that dark, coppery skin she has . . .” The gentleman sighed reminiscently and toyed with the handle of his umbrella.

“Yes . . .” His companion nodded. “She was beautifully built, y’know. Legs—”

“Did you—” The first gentleman expressed shock.

“Hardly. Couldn’t imagine trying. It’s—well, it’s seldom you meet someone so—how shall I say—regal in the true sense of the word.”

“At any rate, she’s no longer with us, the princess. Pity,” Umbrella said. Both speculated silently for a moment where the princess could have gone.

“Back to Morocco, probably, eh?” said the other at last, and then the two gentlemen said goodbye and headed their separate ways into the London fog.

Each bore a ‘Sir’ in front of his name, each was on his way to a society gathering, and both were going, before the night was over, to hear the story that will have London’s posh Mayfair district alternately blushing and rocking with laughter for the rest of 1959.

London society misses Her Royal Highness Princess Stomar H’arriks of Morocco. It may not come right out and say so, but it does. Even though the toothsome royal goody turned out to be an ex-Folies Bergere girl, Pamela Marks by name—Mrs. Marks, that is, the wife of a popular British glamor photographer.

The princess’ jet-black, shoulder-long hair was actually a wig, and it rested on a very pretty blonde head —and a clever one, too; Mrs. Marks manages a London magazine.

The chocolate sultryness came out of a jar and took two hours each time to apply. “I had to be careful to work it into the pores—” the glamour-puss said and, she added, there were moments when she feared the gooey stuff might rub off on a dancing partner’s boiled shirtfront.

The idea was born during a performance of ‘My Fair Lady’—the scene where speech expert Professor Henry Higgins succeeds in passing off his pupil, Eliza Doolittle, a former Cockney flower girl, as a bona-fide lady. Our Pamela had been posing as a Moroccan girl for her husband. Said a friend, seeing a picture, “Let’s see if we can put it over—just like Eliza.”

They did.

London’s elite is used to strange names; people had no difficulty at all with Pam’s unpronounceable mouthful of pseudonym. Her first appearance was a smashing success and demands for encores began to fill the mailbox. She carried off the role beautifully.

It wasn’t easy. First, there was the business of the makeup. If putting it on was a chore, removing it after each appearance was worse. Three baths it took, “— and I had to scrub very hard. I sometimes got quite sore.”

The wig was a major headache. The thing didn’t want to stay on, and her attempts to keep it from settling rakishly over one eye probably played no small part in making for a stately and regal carriage.

But Princess Stomar H’arriks worst moments by far occurred each time a dark-skinned gentleman in robes rustled over—any Mid-Easterner could have been a Moroccan, and how was a girl to know how the men dressed?

The denouement, when it came, wasn’t that exciting at all. No sheik or sultan recognized in the princess a runaway from the harem; no deposed king thought he espied a one-time playmate.

It just happened that a family friend of the Marks’ showed up at one of the parties.

And called Pamela by name.

So, she answered. • • •

Discover the Mysteries of the Heavens (Jul, 1956)

2012-05-14T08:26:31Z

I was going to quip about how advertisers liked to just throw Einstein’s name into an ad to convey a false sense of association, but in this case there seems to be a real one. According to Mattersdorf’s obituary in The New York Times, Einstein was an accounting client of his and did, in fact, proofread his book.

Discover the Mysteries of the Heavens

A simple, straightforward book about the wonders of astronomy for the beginning stargazer.

A KEY TO THE HEAVENS

By Leo Mattersdorf,
with a deep debt of gratitude to Professor Albert Einstein

A Premier Book
No. s27
FAWCETT WORLD LIBRARY
ONLY 35 CENTS

BUY THIS PREMIER BOOK FROM YOUR LOCAL NEWS DEALER If your dealer is sold out, send only 35c plus 5c for postage and wrapping to PREMIER BOOKS, FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS, INC., GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT. Please order by number and title. Canadian orders cannot be accepted.

SUGAR MAGNATE COLLECTS SNAKES (Jan, 1954)

2012-05-14T08:25:57Z

George P. Meade – SUGAR MAGNATE COLLECTS SNAKES

SUGAR, snakes and swimming may seem like rather unrelated subjects—but to 69-year-old George P. Meade of Gramercy, La., they are all fields of major interest, and he is a nationally recognized authority in all three.

As a sugar technologist, Meade is manager of the Colonial Sugars Company’s refinery at Gramercy, a director of the Cuban-American Sugar Company and co-author of the Spencer-Meade “Cane Sugar Handbook,” standard reference on sugar technology. As a snake expert, he is former vice-president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. As an aquatics enthusiast, he is former vice-president of the Southern AAU and a member of the AAU Committee on swimming.

Meade’s interest in reptiles began in the ’20′s when he saw many varieties he could not identify. A northern zoo asked him to supply them with some speckled king snakes giving him an opportunity to study them. Since then he has collected and studied 23 different kinds of Louisiana snakes in his back yard. He also developed a technique for hatching snake eggs artificially and has taken pictures of the process. •

A Woggle Mat Will Wiggle Off Weight! (Dec, 1941)

2012-05-14T08:25:30Z

A Woggle Mat Will Wiggle Off Weight!

THESE innocent looking little mats roll around, with an unsettling, jiggling motion. They are designed to take off excess pounds.

Crossroads at Bikini (Jun, 1946)

2012-05-15T02:15:05Z

Film documentaries of preparations and outcomes may be found below:

Operations Crossroads Underway, 1946/07/01 (1946)

Operation Crossroads (Part I) (1946)

Operation Crossroads (Part II) (1946)

Crossroads at Bikini

The fate of our navy hangs on the outcome of the most dangerous and dramatic maneuver ever known!

BY JAMES KEVIN MILLER

OUT in the lonely atoll of Bikini, 4,150 miles southwest of San Francisco, the curtain of the first act of one of history’s greatest dramas, Operation Crossroads, is about to rise. A production staff of 20,000 scientists and technologists has assembled the supporting cast and props. The dress rehearsal has been held, and the vast stage is set.

For the stellar role, an A-bomb of the power used on Nagasaki will be dropped from a B-29 on about 100 surplus and obsolete ships.

Great decisions hang on the events of this day. Sturdy target ships of almost every major type will undergo the effect of man’s most terrible weapon in a test to decide the future of the world’s naval tactics and ship design.

Many Americans will get a closeup view of the exploding bomb, for remote-controlled television apparatus operating within a range of 11 miles has been set up there. Automatic movie cameras are set to record the entire show from “ghost” planes and well protected shore positions.

Our military and naval leaders already know what happens when the A-bomb is detonated above dry land. Their concern now is with its destructive potential when exploded above and on and under water. For this it is necessary to have three tests.

It is the first test, the explosion of a bomb “several hundred feet” in the air above the target, that is tentatively scheduled for July or August. A B-29 will release the bomb from 30,000 feet. The second test is set for a few months later. For the first two tests shallow water is needed, so the debris can be salvaged for study. For the final and most difficult test, scheduled for next year, deep water will be needed, so as to minimize the effect of the ocean’s bottom on the results. Vice Admiral W.H.P. Blandy, who is in charge of the tests, says it will require depths of “several thousand feet of water.”

The “doomed fleet” of 100 target vessels includes 4 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 2 cruisers, 16 destroyers, 8 submarines, 23 APA’s, 2 AK’s, 6 LST’s, 6 LCI’s, and 25 LCT’s. In order to test foreign ship construction there are also a Jap battleship, a Jap light cruiser, and a German heavy cruiser, the Prinz Eugen.

The submarines will take the blast under the water, lashed to 30-ton concrete blocks on the bottom of the lagoon.

Some 60 ships, grouped 15 to 20 miles away from the explosion center, comprise the support group of vessels. Included are Admiral Blandy’s flagship, the Mount McKinley. Patrol duty is handled by 9 vessels. Repair and service unit assignments have been given 25 other ships. Twenty regular salvage units and 2 salvage lifting vessels are included. There are 10 dispatch and boat pool units, 12 transport vessels, two medical units and one survey ship. Helicopters too are on hand to maintain communication between vessels and planes.

The remote atoll of Bikini was chosen as the ideal test theater because it has less than 200 inhabitants, easily evacuated, and because the area is so isolated as not to endanger the lives of persons living nearby. Bikini is the northernmost of the Ralik chain of the Marshall Islands. The atoll is about 21 miles long by 10 wide, and forms a nearly perfect oval of barely submerged coral dotted with some 20 islands rising a few feet above the ocean at varying intervals along the atoll’s rim.

Within the atoll’s perimeter is a sandy-bottomed lagoon of some 250 square miles over which the target fleet will be arrayed. The average depth of the lagoon is 100 to 180 feet, which permits easy salvage of any vessels sunk by the explosions.

The deployment of the observation vessels probably will be 15 to 20 miles away from the explosion center—for safety, and in order to gauge accurately the effect of the bomb. All that is known about the grouping of the target fleet is that it will be “in a manner calculated to give effects varying from probable destruction to negligible damage among the various ships of each type.”

Every phase of the tests will be photographed. Batteries of special cameras have been set up atop 100-foot steel towers arranged in a ring around the atoll. They are housed in small rooms, each shielded in lead against X-rays and other radioactive hazards. Inside the shielding are air-tight, waterproof boxes, and within these are the cameras. Operation will be automatic, by remote control.

A typical battery contains a nest of six gun-cameras, two Mitchell 35-mm movie cameras, an F-56 aerial camera, a photo-cell unit to control shutter openings, and four telephoto cameras.

Overhead, fleets of drones (radio-controlled planes) will photograph and measure the explosions. Eight F6F Hellcats, mothered by a like number of piloted Hellcats flying a safe 10 to 20 miles away, have been selected for Navy use. The Army will use B-17′s.

Other photographic and measuring equipment, as well as civilian and military scientists and technicians, will be carried by a Navy seaplane squadron and by eight B-29′s and two C-54′s assigned to Army air groups. The latter will operate from Kwajalein. Among the air groups are an Army Transport Command outfit. Altogether some 70 Army planes, including C-46′s for transport duty, will participate.

Television cameras have been set up on two sites in the target area, and recording and movie cameras will “shoot” the televised scenes.

Adequate measures had to be devised to prevent damage to film from radioactivity.

Timing was a critical matter. Many of the cameras are limited in length of run; and since they must be operated by remote control, premature or late starting would introduce the possibility of not obtaining the pictures desired. Then, the blinding flash at the instant of the bomb’s detonation requires that all observers wear special dark glasses of such density that normal vision will be impossible.

Since the ground cameras on Bikini atoll had to be heavily enclosed, there was the further matter of proper temperature control to prevent spoilage of film and condensation on the lens and other parts.

No single thing anywhere, at any time, has ever been given such a tremendous test. What will happen? No one knows for sure. It’s precisely because the bomb effects cannot be anticipated that the test has to be made.

The safety of the United States fleet—which means the security of all the people in our country—is vitally involved.

Toydom’s Million-Dollar Undertakers (Jan, 1954)

2012-05-11T15:02:46Z

Toydom’s Million-Dollar Undertakers

Past masters at turning famine into feast. Bob and Howard Lederer make their unusual fortune by rejuvenating toy flops.

By Frank Lynn

THE Lederer Brothers, Bob and Howard, do not mind being called the Undertakers of the Toy Industry, nor do they mind much that their large loft on the third floor of 39 West 19th Street, in the heart of New York City’s manufacturing area, is called a flop house. For Bob and Howard are owners of the Lederer Industries, a firm that thrives on the mistakes of others.

When a toy, novelty, or children’s book fails to make the grade in Santa’s billion-dollar wonderland, chances are that it will wind up in the Lederers’ toy mortuary at a rare discount. The item is then analyzed for its failure and, when corrected, new ways are found to merchandise it.

No item is too wacky or too large for the toy salvagers as long as it has a use and a definite value.

Last year they handled such sundry items as 100,000 dull gray saxophones, half-a-million Hopalong Cassidy multi-colored lithographed jiggle cards, a million assorted comic books, 50,000 cute cuddly dolls whose “flesh” had turned yellow, and some 250,000 secret writing pads on which messages can be written with invisible ink and decoded with a messy liquid potion.

These items, and countless others, were resold for advertising use and giveaways to bakers, butchers, shoe stores, jewelers and department stores. Merchants discovered long ago that by giving junior a free pencil box or useful plaything costing less than a dime, they could attract more parents to their stores.

Many department stores also stimulate off-season business in various departments by promoting special toy sales. As an example, one California store periodically offers the public $1.00 to $3.00 values for only $.88 per item. The bulk of these underpriced novelties comes from the Lederer “flop house.”

The firm also gift-wraps about 3,000,000 surprise packages each year and an equal number of grab bags which are given away by department store Santas at Christmas time.

Howard Lederer pointed to a large display of toys in his office and explained: “All these toys flopped for one reason or another. A few were too fantastic even for the fertile imagination of our modern smart youngsters. Others were just plain over priced, and still others were overruns. Here’s an item, for instance, that fooled one of the shrewdest toy manufacturers in the business,” said Howard as he showed us a plastic spaceship set.

It seems that early in the Spring of 1952 an enthusiastic toy tycoon retooled his plant at a great cost to produce miniature spaceships. To enhance the package, he consummated a deal to use the likeness and name of Captain Video, a TV Space Man, who wields untold influence over the nation’s space-happy kids. The magic of Captain Video’s name on each set was expected to set the toy world on fire.

By the time Christmas rolled around, the toy tycoon was in a sweat. Captain Video and his spaceship toppled to earth and flopped into the waiting arms of Bob and Howard Lederer.

Why did this set flop? Howard explains it this way: “Give a kid a couple of six-shooters and a western outfit and he can have all kinds of fun chasing other buckaroos or bad men. But take this miniature spaceship set Why do kids dislike it? Because they can’t get into a spaceship and ride it in any simulated action that would zoom them to other planets.”

How did the flop brokers correct the mistake? They simply broke up the thousands of sets, gift-wrapped each of the spaceships, and sold them to premium users as individual giveaways.

One of the biggest problems of the Lederers is finding buyers for some of their’ weird duds and surplus goods. Last year, for instance, the firm purchased about 50,000 surplus M-1 U. S. Government eye-shields. Toy buyers didn’t seem to cotton to the item, nor did the specialty stores. For a while it appeared as though the flop brokers would be stuck with a dud. Then, __ one day, brother Bob examined one of the eyeshields and noticed that it had a rather wide plastic band on top of the glasses suitable for an advertising message. He made up a sample and, after an exhaustive show- ing to prospective customers, he finally disposed of more than half of the stock at three-and-a-half cents per item. Originally, they cost Uncle Sam sixteen cents each. A few months later the balance of the stock was unloaded to a merchandise speculator at a penny-and-a-half per item. Later the Lederers learned, to their amazement, that the speculator had resold the eyeshields to Uncle Sam at sixteen cents apiece.

“There’s a market for everything,” mused Howard, “but the trick is to find it. Hardly anything we buy ever goes unsold. Once, we bought 100,000 plastic wedding bands; 200,000 old jig-saw puzzles, and also a million lollypops.

“How did we unload these burdens? Well, we dug up a prize candy manufacturer who took the rings off our hands and found, to our surprise, that jig-saw puzzles were the rage in South Africa. Then we found a vending machine outfit who was happy to get the lollypops.”

The brothers’ late father started the Lederer Industries 50 years ago as an advertising novelty house. When Bob and Howard got out of school they joined the firm, and that’s when they- decided to branch out into the toy business. The first batch of toys imported from Germany failed to sell for one reason or another. Rather than unload them as distress goods, one of the brothers got the bright idea of gift-wrapping each toy and then selling them as surprise packages. When a sample was shown to a Sears, Roebuck toy buyer he liked the idea and, without hesitation.

bought the entire stock of 18,000 packages —sight unseen.

Other firms asked for similar gift-wrapped surprise packages and grab bags and soon the Lederers found themselves in a new, novel business.

One of their sources for obtaining merchandise for surprise packages was in the distress merchandise field. They also took toys off the hands of manufacturers who had no warehousing facilities, and they frequently bought over-run merchandise at discounts.

As their surprise-package business boomed and their buying power increased, they subsequently contracted for the entire output of several toy factories on a yearly basis.

In addition, they developed a giant container in the shape of a pencil and filled it with pencils, a ruler, and an eraser, and included this item in grab bags. When they discovered that they could print an advertising message on the cardboard pencil holder, they began selling it as an advertising novelty. Today, the Lederers assemble and produce more than 200,000 pencil sets a week. Shoe stores and other merchants use them as giveaways to get the kids into their stores.

A few years ago, the Lederers acquired the German patent to a novelty called “The Burning of the Maine.” The idea of this chemically treated oblong sheet of paper was to light it with a burning cigarette and then watch the likeness of the Maine catch fire and “sink” into the deep. To make the novelty more appealing for American consumption, the Lederers renamed it the “Magic Race” and turned it into a horse race game. The suspense as to which horse would win, place, or show provided so much amusement for kids from six to 60 that the game soon became a national craze. Jockeys and horse trainers in particular found unlimited fun in these races that couldn’t be fixed.

Recently, a merchant mariner bought 1.000 race forms from Howard Lederer. A month later, he returned for another 1,000 and, several months later, he repeated the order. Curious, Howard asked the gob what he was doing with the novelty.

“Oh,” whispered the sailor, “I run these horse races aboard ship. I collect a dollar from each of six players and pay off five to the winner. I make a buck on each race!”

The Lederers estimate that this is by far their most cheaply priced novelty and they sell millions of them each year at less than a penny each.

In a year’s time the Lederer brothers buy from 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 toys. And many of them, like cigars that convert into American Flags and Angels on wings, sell for under a nickel.

Every now and then, young, frustrated toy makers will wind up with their unsalable products at the Lederer plant because they find that it’s a pleasure to do business with them.

Not long ago a young man who held a responsible position with a large department store found himself with a stock of 25,000 unsalable baby shoes. He showed a sample of the shoes to Howard and asked if he would take the lot off his hands. But the experienced, wise Howard would have nothing to do with the item mainly because the shoes had no play value whatsoever and last, but not least, the latex formed shoes gave off an odoriferous odor that would knock the stuffings out of any buyer with a quick sense of smell.

“Many flops in the toy and novelty field,” said Howard, “are due to the novice who doesn’t understand the needs of the market. An inventor has what looks like a natural. He spends all kinds of money, much of it borrowed. and then goes broke because his idea wasn’t suited to the needs of buyers.

“By and large, though, failures in the toy industry are the result of 90 per cent poor management and 10 per cent bad luck. Luck is a very important factor in the success of many toys and novelties.”

The Lederer boys advise new toy or novelty manufacturers to seek professional advice before embarking on a venture that may quickly bankrupt them. “Money can be made with toys and novelties,” said Howard, “but you’ve got to find a new twist in marketing them. Our twist is to capitalize on the failures of others.”

BUILDING IS MODELED AS BIRTHDAY CAKE (May, 1929)

2012-05-14T02:35:04Z

I remember this building from when I lived in Minneapolis. It was built by Wilber Foshay, a utility magnate who was later convicted for running a pyramid scheme. Check out the Wikipedia entry for an interesting story about its dedication celebration. Apparently Foshay hired John Philip Sousa compose a march for the occasion but it was only played that one time because his check to Sousa bounced. It wasn’t until some investors in Minnesota paid his bill that it was heard again.

It seems like every time I read about Sousa it has something to with copyright or music piracy.

BUILDING IS MODELED AS BIRTHDAY CAKE

SUGAR and flour were used in building up the birthday cake model of the Foshay building pictured in the photo at the right. The Foshay tower, built in the city of Minneapolis, was recently described in the pages of Modern Mechanics. The birthday cake held the center of the table at a dinner given in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the W. B. Foshay building in that city.

MI-stoppers (Jan, 1954)

2012-05-11T15:01:58Z

MI-stoppers

DUAL-TAIL De Havilland 110 seen from rear at recent air show in Farnborough. England wears its jets like a futuristic double-barreled cannon. Navy will use it.

CLOTHESHORSE wears pants with upturned cuffs tied above hoofs. Equine’s owner added touch of sartorial splendor after beast suffered leg injury. Trousers protect wound from insect bites.

WAHTZAT? Well, it’s the creation of Bill Custer. Roanoke. Va., amateur taxidermist, and is made from a chipmunk’s body, squirrel feet, the head of a pike fish with top covered with deer fur.

HUNGRY JET swallows its two solicitous mechanics. The ship is the Swedish 1-29 fighter with top speed of 650 mph. Sweden has estimated 1.500 first-line planes, world’s fourth largest air force.

Landing On An Automobile! (Dec, 1941)

2012-05-11T15:01:33Z

Why is the writing on the plane upside down?

Landing On An Automobile!

ONE of the most unusual aerobatic stunts ever achieved was photographed recently at an air show, where Dannie Fowlie, stunt flier, successfully took off in his plane from the top of an automobile, and then managed a landing on the car top.

Smoke The Pipe Of Peace (Dec, 1941)

2012-05-11T15:01:22Z

Smoke The Pipe Of Peace

Your Pipe Can Be Your Best Friend Or Your Worst Foe-Here’s The Way To Select It, Break It In, And Care For It.

by Rory O’Shane

THE saddest men I know are those who have tried everything in the way of pipes and have yet to find something that is sweet, cool, and dry. Most of their complaints about sour pipes and rank tobacco could have been avoided by exercising a little discrimination in the selection and care of a pipe.

The rules for choosing a pipe are on the same par with picking a wife. You look for graceful lines, a sweet disposition, and the ability to improve with age. Three types of pipe embody these characteristics in more or less varying degrees.

Undoubtedly the aristocrat of them is the genuine meerschaum, so-called because of its resemblance to crystallized seafoam. There is no other known quality which is as light, cool, and absorbent.

There are various schools of thought as to the means of breaking in a meerschaum and at the same time turning the bowl to the glow for which it is famous. Perhaps the best plan is to use a fake upper bowl which will fit inside the bowl of your pipe; this prevents the rim of fire discharged by the burning tobacco from overheating and thus undercoloring the upper part of the bowl.

Your meerschaum should be smoked slowly and thoroughly down to the heel of the pipe. Do so indoors, if possible, for a Meerschaum does not take kindly to sudden climatic changes. To prevent the sweet dryness from dissipating, it should never be re-smoked until it has had a chance to cool. Some smokers think a chamois jacket sewed around the bowl aids the “breaking-in” process. This is not strictly so, but it does protect the bowl from being spotted by the hand, since any grease, dirt, or perspiration on the fingers will discolor the pipe while it is cooling.

There are various imitation meerschaums on the market capable of fooling anyone but an expert. Burnt gypsum soaked with lime in a solution of gum arabic forms a lustrous plaster exactly like meerschaum and with the same polished surface. There is also a hardened plaster of Paris model which almost defies detection. A third kind is an ingenious derivation of the chips and dust collected from the real meerschaum and bonded together with various chemicals. The price of an imitation is about half that of the genuine. It is advisable, therefore, to buy meerschaums only from the most reliable of sources.

Several million pipe smokers in the United States own another kind of meerschaum—the Missouri meerschaum—or just plain “corncob” to you.

Selling for a thin dime, it is one of the best ] things a man can smoke because it is extremely porous and moisture-absorbing. Although their low price makes them convenient { to smoke and throw away, you should know | that the larger the cob and the woodier the fiber, the better the smoke.

It is said that the corn-cob leads a double life—for every one smoked in public there are ten cached away in office desks, bookcases, and easy chairs. The people who look down their noses at the lowly cob might take a lesson in democracy from Walter Pidgeon, Mayor La Guardia, General Pershing, Burleigh Grimes, Senator Bennett Clark, H. L. Mencken and a host of others, none of whom is afraid to smoke his ten-center in public.

With the experienced pipe smoker the wooden pipe with the short stem has taken its place as the favorite by reason of its excellent consolidation of durability, coolness, and light weight. But the trouble with most native American pipes is their tendency to char and crack under the heat of burning tobacco, i Cherrywood is especially sweet smoking, but the interior of the bowl fails to carbonize well.

In the imported bruyere we have a wood that heats slowly, is beautifully grained, and absorbs moisture rapidly. It is sapless and non-odor-retaining so that when heated, the fragrance of the tobacco is not mingled with the smell of the wood and lost.

Algerian and Corsican white straight – grained bruyere make the best briars because the wood is very old and extremely light. It is doubtful whether or not the direction of the grain augments the smoking quality, but today pipe connoisseurs value highly any briar which has grain running vertically up and down the bowl of the pipe. On the contrary, in former years, the gnarled and knotty parts of the root, when incorporated into the bowl, became its strongest selling point, the idea being that this was the hardest part of the root and thus the most fire-resistant.

Although a great number of pipe smokers satisfy their aesthetic senses by watching for the flawless beauty of a perfectly grained bowl, the economical buyer would do well to take advantage of the large number of briars called “seconds” on the market. If you follow along the grain with a keen eye, you can see where the wood has been chipped, marred, or worm-holed, then refilled with other material. These defects permit a sale at much lower prices, but there is no difference in the smokability, and it is a splendid opportunity to get two good pipes for the price of one.

As far as the sales claims for pipes that are treated with honey or boiled in oil that “imparts to the briar a spicy flavor that is unique and delightful,” don’t you believe it. The processes function only to sweeten the smoke, not the pipe, and quickly wear away. It is also well to remember that the thicker the wood in a pipe, the cooler the smoke.

Varnished pipes are not too highly recommended since certain types of varnish fill in the pores of the wood and prevent absorption of stale tobacco fluids. These are to be distinguished from briars -whose luxurious color is the result, of staining or being steamed under low pressure.

It is desirable to have a stem that meshes with the shank rather than one that must be squeezed in. What very often happens when the pipe is being taken apart to be cleaned is that the thin part of the wood splinters. The proper way to dissemble a briar is to hold the stem in one hand and turn the bowl in the other.

The highly advertised metal inserts are of no practical value either in keeping the pipe cool or in protecting the smoker from bitter tobacco juices. Old-timers generally remove this “hardware” as soon as they buy the pipe. For one thing metal conducts heat so rapidly that the metallic taste mingles with the taste of the tobacco and stings the tongue. For another, most of the gadgets capture juices and then roll them in a flood down the stem when the pipe is tipped inadvertently.

In 1939 a famous aeronautical professor applied engineering ingenuity toward removing two objectionable features of the pipe—overheated smoke and acrid tobacco juices. His aluminum barrel in a fluted design increases the rate of heat dissipation in order to cool the smoke before it reaches the smoker’s mouth. Condensing tars are retained by a small radiator device until the pipe is cleaned.

There are more fallacies in existence on the subject of breaking in a pipe than in almost any other field. For instance I have been told, with all the seriousness in the world, that the only way to break in a pipe is to light it and hold it out the window of a car that is being driven rapidly. Nothing could be farther off the track. The terrific draft set up by the wind burns the tobacco so swiftly and unevenly that only part of the bowl receives the heat. Your pipe will taste like something fresh out of a fire-gutted building. Moreover, the heat expansion may crack the bowl. It is uniform seasoning that is required.

When a less expensive pipe is used for the first time, many smokers scrape the inside of the bowl to remove the varnish and fuzz, then moisten the interior with a damp cloth. This is to prevent the fine dust and residue from contracting the pores and scorching the bowl. It also keeps this extraneous material from adding a sting to the first few pipe loads of tobacco.

Though scraping the bowl of the more expensive pipes is unnecessary, since they are put through special processes at the factory to remove the fuzz, dampening the bowl is important. The tobacco being moist next to the wood will not char it there, but will allow a sooty film to form instead.

Before the moisture evaporates, pack the bowl half full of tobacco with just a little “spring” to it— neither too tight nor too loose. Pick a brand that is free from artificial coloring or else the gummy substances which do not burn will collect at the bottom of the pipe and turn it sour. Use the same kind of tobacco until the pipe is fairly well seasoned. Switching tobaccos on a new pipe will make it either too strong or too flat.

Don’t puff away at the thing as if your lungs were a pair of blacksmith’s bellows. Overheating a new pipe prevents a “cake” from forming. The well-broken in pipe is sweet from top to heel, so remember to smoke the tobacco all the way down until there is nothing left to burn.

For the first few loads leave the ashes in the pipe until it is absolutely cool—this gives the liquid residue a chance to soak into the pores of the fresh wood. Do not scrape the inner surface clear of the thin coating of carbon that has collected since it insulates the pipe against the heat and prevents the wood from cracking.

Too many smokers make mistakes in handling the carbon “cake” in their pipes. A thick “cake” never makes a pipe sweet, it only serves to overheat it, just as excessive carbon in a motor makes it sluggish and hot. A thin cake is cool and sweet, but it must be of uniform thickness in every part of the bowl.

Never use a sharp instrument to clean the pipe. Instead use a dull reamer* to prevent cutting through the cake and chipping the wood. The little nicks will destroy much of the sweetness of a pipe that is otherwise perfectly seasoned.

If your pipe tastes like a million dollars, don’t work a good thing to death. A pipe should never be in continuous use for more than a couple of weeks. Clean it out, run a pipe cleaner through it, and hang it bowl down so that it can rest. This will dry out any excess fluid that has collected. Some smokers recommend leaving it where the sun can play on it. Another good idea is to pack the bottom with powdered chalk before placing it aside.

One pipe isn’t enough for the man who smokes continuously. Puffing on the same pipe all day long makes it hot, strong, and evil smelling. Have several pipes in your collection and keep rotating them. Each will be cool and dry when its turn comes for the next smoke.

When a pipe goes strong, the place to look is in the shank. Here, rather than in the stem or bowl, the acrid juices and stale smoke accumulate. A foul shank will spoil the best tobacco, so run a thick pipe cleaner through it after every few pipefuls. If you have a metal guard in the pipe, use pipe cleaners frequently and clean it out with hot running water at intervals.

When pipe cleaners do not prevent a strong acrid taste, the pipe needs more than an ordinary cleaning. The best thing to do is blow steam through it. First remove the stem and hold the mouth of the pipe over a kettle of boiling water. You might as well throw the pipe away if you have cleaned it with soap and hot water since the taste of stale tobacco is preferable to the result of a soap and water bath.

If you have a cork that will fit into the bowl of your pipe, here is another good treatment. Cut a hole into the cork just the size of the nozzle of a seltzer bottle, then place the mouthpiece of the pipe into a pan. Squirt a small amount of the soda water from the siphon through the pipe. It works like a charm.